The sun peeked through my bedroom windows this morning and delivered a gift of immeasurable value.

You got it, too.

Did you recognize it? Did you open it carefully and appraise it properly?

This gift we received today is the gift of time. We received it yesterday and – if God so chooses – we’ll receive it tomorrow. But each time we receive it, it’s colored and flavored with different opportunities and different consequences.

And this one, this twenty-four hour gift that rests in our hands this very moment, can never be duplicated or used again.

It is a gift of immeasurable value.

And how we choose to use it is one of the most important decisions we can make.

We can choose to waste it. We can decide to undervalue it. We can give it away. We can even disregard it.

But what if we cherished it?

What if we stood in awe and wonder at the possibilities?

What if we understood the responsibilities?

What if we considered the opportunities and decided to choose wisely how we spent this gift?

There is a daily battle for our mind and heart. A battle to steal our time, distract us from assignments, and keep us from God’s presence. A battle for our focus and attention. A battle to render us ineffective for Kingdom purposes. A battle to disengage us from the calling God has placed on our lives.

A familiar quote from Corrie ten Boom says, “If the devil cannot make us bad, he will make us busy.”

His efforts have not gone without success in my life. But I am determined to wage war against busyness and distractions and the setting up of idols above the One true and living God.

Because every morning we are faced with the choice to give ourselves away to something. And when we choose something over Him, that’s what we’re doing right? Setting up idols?

We are increasingly becoming a people connected to social media and internet and smart phones and goal setting but disconnected from the purposes and heart of God.

We have become a people intimate with the things of this world but we have been called to be a people intimate with Christ.

We try to satisfy and fill our hearts with people and jobs and entertainment and activities and stuff. Our lives are full but we feel empty. We feel lonely and incomplete and nothing is ever enough and something is always missing.

Without Christ at the very center and front and rear of everything we do, something will always be missing.

Loving our own agenda or anything else more than we love God’s presence numbs our hearts to His quiet invitation of fellowship. We miss seeing Him because our eyes are set on worthless things. We miss hearing Him because we are distracted by a million other voices. We miss intimacy because our heart is divided.

But there is hope.

We, a generation and a people who have left our first love, can turn away from all that has kept us fully from God and return to the place we were created for. The place we are whole, fulfilled, complete. Our place IN CHRIST.

We can take this gift of time and command our space. We can value every moment and insert eternity into our days when we start and finish and abide in His presence.

We must.

Because a people of purpose and prayer and presence are a people of power. And a people who walk in nearness and intimacy with Christ can shake the earth – God can shake the earth through us if we will only draw near.

If we bow our lives in surrender and open our hearts as a holy habitation He will move in power through us.

And we need Him to move in power.

Prayer:

May our deepest dependence and desire, Jesus, be for You and You alone. Help us to reorder our days and remember our first love. Quiet our frantic souls and cause us to rest in Your presence. Meet us there with a passionate encounter and transform us. Come and move in this place. Amen.