How to make strategic space to know God

 

Growth requires fertile soil, and the fertile soil of our lives is the space we give ourselves to cultivate what matters — to develop our unique gifts, to grow professionally and personally, and to grow spiritually.

 

When God asked me to write about space, I was puzzled at first. What? You want me to write about space? And then I realized he meant downtime — like time away from everything and everyone to grow. I realize this is going to be a challenging topic for parents with young kids, for families, and for those sick or in crisis, but no matter our circumstances, we must make time for the things that matter most to our souls, and foremost, our spiritual growth.

 

Easy for me to say, because I’m single, right? Nope. A single life has different demands than a coupled up life where two partners share the burdens of life and all the daily rhythms that can be so exhausting. As a single person, I have space and time to love people a little extra, but it’s all balanced by that extra load and burden of providing for myself (and if you’re divorced and single with kids, also your kiddos), and not having anyone else to fall back on. Add to that 10 years of chronic illness, financial distress, and work demands, and there’s little energy left for feeding myself, let alone growth.

 

Friends, if we stop growing, we die a little to ourselves, and we can become imbalanced in all kinds of ways. There are so many commitments, responsibilities and activities vying for our attention at all times that it can be easy to overlook growth, but we have to take charge and take back our time, because growth matters….  eternally.

 

When this life ends, will you be prepared for what is to come? Are you ready to die today? Are you living your best life with no regrets? 

 

If we cannot answer that we are certain of our destinies and prepared for the next life, we have some serious work to do. And I do not say this to scare anyone, I am simply saying that we get just one life and that we are accountable for how we spend it. Will we spend it knowing God or distanced from him and afraid? Will we search for and cultivate all of the good gifts he has placed within us, or we will stifle that yearning and miss our highest potentials?

 

God is calling us to write our stories together — with Him. He is reaching out through the beauty of creation and calling us home to our souls and to our spirits where we can reconnect with his spirit of love and peace and create something beautiful from the overflow of love he has placed within us. But we cannot reconnect to him without space. 

 

Space away.

Away from the distractions.

Away from the runny noses and dirty diapers.

Away from the reports and deadlines.

Away from the ceaseless chatter of our environments and of our minds.

 

This is where I say something that may seem counterintuitive, but here goes:  Friends, if you’re not growing at church, don’t go. 

 

Get still. Take space. Open your Bibles and grow with God. If church is another distraction in your pool of  commitments — if you’re going and not growing — don’t go. Spend the time at home taking space away with God. 

 

There will be a time to come back to church, but if it helps you to be away for a season so you can go deep into the Word of God, I suggest wholeheartedly that God honors a heart fervently seeking him whatever the space of worship. Spiritual growth is this important.

 

The reality of our 21st century rapid-fire-whack-a-mole lives is that taking space away from anything is hard. And it can be even harder to study the Bible, but friends, we must. If we are going to know God, we need to spend time with him, and we cannot do that unless we get away from the distractions. While it may be harder for others than some, space is possible for everyone.

 

We make time to eat. We prioritize workouts and time with family. We manage to get our families to church. If we can do all of these things, then there is a way to find space for God too. Really what I’m suggesting is that we stop giving God the leftovers of our lives and start giving him our first fruits instead.

 

Friends, God calls us to so much more than surviving each day; he calls us to thriving. And thriving can only truly be accomplished when our souls are in union with the Most High God. If we don’t honor the special desires God has placed within each of our hearts, life can become a devastating rhythm of despair. We need God to help us cultivate his callings on our lives, and we need his wisdom to help us grow.

 

If we waste this life loving the world, what of eternity? We are called by God to be still and know that he is God (Psa. 46:10). We are called to know (yada) God. In the Bible, the Hebrew word yada means intimacy characteristic of a personal, sacred relationship. Adam knew Eve. Abraham knew God. Yada is the word used for intimate knowing. We are called to know God intimately with sincere and surrendered hearts.

 

Knowing God, just like marriage and anything important and deserving of our time and attention, requires commitment and sacrifice. We have to work at knowing God, and the time we spend with him is the most precious investment we can make in this life. It is how God does the work of transformation and sanctification in our lives:  We are called to holiness, just as he is holy, and we won’t ever get there if we waste our lives on worldly ends (1 Pet. 1:13-21).

 

Space is the place where we get still enough to listen to the cries of our spirits and to hear the voice of God himself. It is also the place where we grow spiritually in our knowledge of God, but it is only reached through discipline and perseverance. 

 

Satan will do anything to keep us distracted. In some cases, he will even use the church to pull us away from God through ceaseless motion and activity that does not yield fruit. We need to have eyes that are opened to the strategies of the enemy to kill, steal and destroy, and to realize that these often come in soft distractions like Netflix, social media, and overexertion in service to the church.

 

In church, we can know who God is without really knowing him, and that is the greatest risk — to have known of the wonder and power of God without ever experiencing the transformation that comes from truly knowing him. It’s the eternal question that should call our souls to attention. It should be the wake up call to the callings of our lives. Are we doing the work of the gospel? Do we really yada (know) God?

 

The Lord says in Hosea 6:3 that knowing God is a work of perseverance and beauty:

 

 

We read in Hosea 6:6 a few verses later:

 

 

We must press on and lean into God to know him. We also need to recognize that the Lord wants us to know him far more than he desires our praise or worship. If we don’t truly know him, our worship songs are a clanging of noise, and the time we sacrifice in his service is just activity; we are but Pharisees knowing about God but never really knowing him.