Daily Habit of Spending Time with God

How have you been doing with your daily habit of spending time with God?  We were supposed to be working on that challenge daily.  Things got really crazy around here with Christmas and sick kids and I quit updating daily, although I tried daily to spend time in prayer, reading God's word, and reading through our daily prayer book at the breakfast table with my family each morning.  I'll post about my next daily habit that I'm going to focus on soon....but I just wanted to check in and see how your challenge went.  I definitely love that God speaks to me and makes my paths clearer when I take the time out of my day to truly spend time with Him.

Spending Time with God Day 6

I woke up feeling very overwhelmed again today, but I prayed and asked God for His peace and I prayed with the kids.  As I was walking into Bible Study today, one of the ladies took my hand and told me "you are always so faithful."  I squeezed her hand and tears came to my eyes.  I like to think of my compliments as coming from God Himself.  I felt His peace come over me while at Bible Study today.  I have some things I'd like to share...but I will try to share those tomorrow.  I took myself out to lunch at Panera and Christmas shopping at Uptown and I need to get the gifts out of the car before the kids come home.  I just wanted to take a few minutes of quiet before they come home to take a few minutes and blog.

Spending Time with God Day 5

I woke up this morning feeling very overwhelmed.  My kindergartener didn't want to get up (not usually like her) and she started crying this monring about not wanting to go to school because she hates to write and doesn't write well and writing hurts her hands.  My 3rd grader had a meltdown after getting caught doing something that she was told not to do twice now and got grounded after school.  My 4th grader had a bad afternoon after school yesterday with some behaviors towards Mom and his sister and tried carrying that over into this morning.  My 5th grader was basically caught lying after several times of Mom asking about why she had no homework lately and basically told on herself at dinner last night and when I caught it and asked her about it she totally shut down.  After we were in bed my husband discovered that her math teacher had send us an email basically concerned because she had a math test today that she was sent home to study with and she was refusing the one-on-one help from her at school and didn't know what was going on and how best to help her.  I've seen similar things here at home lately, but I did tell the teacher that math is very difficult for her and I think she truly doesn't grasp the concepts and in her mind if she just ignores it or just refuses help then nobody will know.  She has a teacher to go to for content mastery, but it's a struggle to get her to go there too.  I just don't know how to advocate for her right now.  We keep telling her that her teachers and us are here to help her, but she just blows us off.  I felt very overwhelmed and God brought me to Psalm 23.  I love that He tells me that He will care for us and gently lead the mother.  The kids and I prayed together before school and I sent some e-mails to the teachers and I am just going to tackle it one step at a time.  Thank you for caring for us, dear Lord.

Spending Time with God Day 4

I got up to read my BSF notes this morning and do my prayer time before the kids get up for school.  We were reading about the final judgment day and the day of the Lord.  All who believe in Jesus will be saved from God's day of judgment and all the terrible things that will happen that day.  One passage in my notes that I loved too was "In His sovereign purpose and time, God will bring the present order of things to an end.  God is not powerless or passive about His world and its people.  He is supremely real and intensely involved, and evil will not stand."  The Lord will roar from Zion and thunder from Jerusalem.  But, I love the promise that Joel reveals to us "Though the earth and the heavens will tremble, the Lord will be a refuge for His people, a stronghold for the people of Israel."

This message does 2 things for me...it makes me want to pray for the people I know that are unbelievers all the more that they will accept God and make the choices necessary to live for Him.  And it also makes me happy to know that I am a child of God and that He is my refuge and I have nothing to fear.  I am His and He is my refuge and my stronghold.  I am so thankful for His promises to us and that I am redeemed and renewed through Jesus.