Squirrel!

Friday 5/8/2015 4:38 AM

I am amazed at how quickly things can turn around in my walk with God. It seems that a slightly busier schedule and a few distractions can easily dissuade me from my regular morning routine of Bible reading and prayer. This past week has been such a week. I am currently giving my last round of midterm exams in my classes and I am preparing for final exams. I’ve had a few extra meetings thrown in for good measure and suddenly it seems I am too busy for my morning quiet time.

The theme of my devotions this week is singleness of heart and if there was ever a week when I didn’t have singleness of heart, this was it. I feel a little bit like the talking dog, Dug, in the movie Up, always distracted by a squirrel across the street. In his book Dimensions of Prayer, Douglas V. Steere describes the need for a deep desire to be in God’s presence as a prerequisite for singleness of heart. “To live the life of prayer means to emerge from my drowse, to awaken to the communing, guiding, healing, clarifying, and transforming current of God’s Holy Spirit in which I am immersed. But to awaken is not necessarily to return. Awareness, no matter how vivid, must be accompanied by ‘a longing aye to dwell within the beauty of his countenance,’ and until prayer knows and is the expression of this longing, it is still callow and is likely to melt away at the first sharp thaw.” I think it is the lack of that “longing aye” to which Steere refers that causes me to melt away in my commitment. I need to say yes to cultivating my relationship with God instead of no.