strength.

I've passed yet another busy season in my life, and the next is quickly approaching. Unfortunately with the extremely busy times in my life, there is a severe slash in my time with the Lord. Recently, I've come to a realization, and in light of this realization I've gained revelation. - I've realized a trend in my life during busy seasons, I always seem to become guilty for not spending as much time with God as I feel I should, and in turn, I get descouraged and don't try as hard to get back into the groove. It starts slow; I'll miss a day or two with God here and there, but when I miss just one day, I feel guilty and find it hard to get back into it the next day so feelings of discouragement progress to allow my mindset to become so awful that I begin to not miss a few days, but weeks. My thoughts are still on God throughout the day, but I never feel like just talking to Him throughout the course of the day is really enough - and losing such huge chunks of time with God weakens my communion with the Holy Spirit; I'm no longer in line with what He's whispering in my ear, and that's a dangerous place to be - because I know I'm becoming slightly more distant from God, I become discouraged even though I know the truth; that He still loves me, and is inviting me into His arms.

My latest situation was crazy...but it made me come to this revelation. I would sing to the Lord and talk with Him whenever I was working on my own/had a few moments of quiet, but I wasn't getting that actual time to dig deeper; I didn't feel I was devoting enough time and that was when the guilt settled in. Because of this guilt and constant bombardment of tasks, I began to get discouraged. A friend of mine helped me realize that it isn't necessarily the amount time that you spend with God that's important, it's the significance of the time you do get, and the position of your heart during that time.

The thing is ... we may not always get the time we would like with God, but we need to keep running hard for the prize, despite the fact that life gets a little busy at times. We must continue to pray night and day with love and know He is pleased always. And when we actually get the time, use it to return to our first love. I know that's something I've struggled with; because I was discouraged, I didn't want to put in the effort to "catch" all the lost time. Which is really wierd when I think about it because time with God isn't about a 'schedule' that I need to keep, it's about simply learning; learning to love, learning to live, learning my heart, learning God's heart, and learning how the two flow as one.

What I think, is that a strong relationship lies in confidence; not in yourself and your strength, but in God and that He is strong when we are weak.