It’s application day in our daily devotional sequence (Psalm 119 passage, New Testament passage, Application). Two days ago the psalmist’s prayer asked God to enlarge, expand his heart and yesterday James admonished us to be doers of the Word, not just hearers. Today I want to give you some ideas on what you can DO right now to make you heart more open to God’s Word and His Spirit. These simple spiritual disciplines will serve you your entire life. I challenge you to adopt a couple and really lean into them. They’re easy to do and I think you’ll be surprised at their return.
Practicing His Presence
Most of us partition our busy lives sometimes for survival or at least to make it work. The problem with that is often God and our spiritual development gets put in a box that usually only gets what’s left-over at the bottom of our list. Practicing His Presence is a simple all-day, everyday discipline that doesn’t add to your day. It actually brings peace and clarity. All it requires is a little refocusing and a little attitude adjustment. And let’s be honest we all need that. You don’t have to do all of these to benefit. Don’t pick the ones you are already doing but it’s OK to pick some low-hanging fruit to get you started. Once you get going I think you’ll find yourself coming back to this list to add some more.
Flash prayers
This first discipline comes from the idea Paul mentioned in his letter to the church at Thessalonica to “pray continuously” (1 Thessalonians 5:17). Most of us have our phones with us all day. Why not set an alarm for every hour during your day? Then when the alarm goes off rifle off a few half-sentence prayers for what you are doing, what needs there might be in your family or friends, or what’s coming up in the day. It doesn’t matter where you are or what you are doing. If you are in a meeting just put it on vibrate and pray for the meeting, yourself and those attending.
Talk while working
This has become my favorite practice. At first, people object to this discipline because they say they need to concentrate and focus on what they are doing. The truth is there is ALWAYS a running conversation in our heads. The shift here is to make God part of that conversation. (Hint – You can forget about repeatedly addressing Him as “Father God” every 5 seconds.) Two things have emerged for me. First, I am constantly asking Him, “What do you think of this?” or its corollary “What would you do?” The second thing is that I am more appreciative and find myself saying, “Thank you Lord” a lot. When you combine prayer and action, even trivial and ordinary things have spiritual value and divine orientation.
Play to an audience of One
The idea here is to live as though it is only God who sees you. Don’t seek public accolades and the limelight. Seek to please God not impress others.
Pay attention to temptations
Monitor your response to temptations of all types (the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life). Instead of recoiling and retreating, turn those moments (as they happen) into opportunities to talk to God about the power it has over you, how you can escape it (Jesus promised that), and what the implications are for giving in to it.
I Spy God
We used to play this as a game with our kids when they were growing up. The basic idea is to see who can find the most things that display God’s handiwork in nature and the world around us. This can happen anywhere. The result is that it cultivates an attitude of wonder, gratitude, and a sense that His stamp is on everything.
Look for God in human interactions
This is a hard one because most of the trials and the hardest things of life revolve around personal relationships. People are messy and they mess up our lives. What if we asked God to expand our hearts by coaching us in how we should relate to others. What might be different in your day if you invited God into every conversation planned or not? What if you saw each of them as a gift from God, not just the person but the interaction too? What if you saw the good, bad and the ugly as coming from God’s hand with a purpose for you? What if God allows those annoying EGR (extra grace required) people into our lives to enlarge our hearts and to help us love as He loves?
APPLICATION – QUESTIONS TO ANSWER
- The Apostle James knew Jesus, everything about him, and heard Him speak the very Words of God, yet he is the one that admonishes us to be doers of the Word, not just hearers. He’s asking you, “What are you going to do?”
- How will you make it happen?
PRAY
Wrap up this section of the devotional by combining the Scriptures that we’ve focused on the last two days and your answers to the questions into a prayer. I’m pretty confident that He has been talking to you already so pray it back to Him – what you learned, what you decided, what you committed to, what you need his help with. Then, when you are done, make sure you wait silently, patiently, expectantly for God to speak to you. You might want to have a pad and pen handy to jot notes.
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