Unhurried Time With God

Unhurried Time With God

justin1 I rarely go to the States.  It’s not that I try to avoid traveling or going up north.  It’s not fear of the cold.  (I haven’t worn a jacket in years) But Honduras is home.  I love being with my wife and our twins.  I’m energized daily by the mission God has given us here.  But last week I had the opportunity to be part of a spiritual leadership conference in Atlanta that was lead by the Blackaby organization.  For those of you who are not familiar with them they are well known within the Christian community for writing the “Experiencing God” Bible study.  It’s an amazing life changing study that I highly recommend.

But I digress…

While at the conference we had the opportunity to spend an evening with Dr. Henry Blackaby who is now in his 80’s and his son Richard who now runs the ministry and does a significant amount of writing, speaking and coaching of leaders.  Both are wise and love God.  During dinner they showed great interest in what God was doing in Honduras through Sparrow Missions.  I was happy to share it, and when I saw the opportunity to ask questions I did.  The first was about family.  Richard and his siblings had all grown up in a ministry family and are all now in ministry in one capacity or another.  My question:  “How do you keep a healthy family while living on mission?”

Richard quickly called in his mother and his father Henry to bring them in to the scenario to speak to it.  They shared simple ideas that I found very cool.

  1. “We didn’t hide anything”.  When our kids struggled we looked for someone who could help us or them.  Then they shared multiple times while living on mission when they had help from fellow ministers.  So powerful.
  2. “When God provided for our family we showed and celebrated with our kids”. They spoke of how a check would come in the mail and they would show each child the check and say, “this is God taking care of us”.  “He is faithful”.
  3. “We spoke positively”.  They didn’t talk about all the hard things that come along with ministry.  They knew that their kids would see the ugly and challenging side eventually, but they shared testimonies at the dinner table to lay a foundation of faith and positivity.

I was convicted by each of these things.

The next question came from a pastor who directed it at Dr. Henry Blackaby.  His question was loaded but simple.  He asked, “where did all this come from?”  “The books, devotionals, incite, counseling, leadership… where did it come from?”  There were fifteen of us in this conference and it felt like time froze as his question came out.  We all knew the content and have benefited personally from it.  I had no idea what he would say.  Eighty plus year old Dr. Henry Blackaby leans back in his chair and very stoically yet simply said, “unhurried time with God”.

The room shuttered.  Each of the leaders in the room respon justin ded in some way.  For some reason the word “unhurried” seemed very loud to each of us.  My mind swirled around searching for a time with God that was not hurried in some way.  There were scraps or small little memories that I could put together.  Some were in a Montana retreat with the Trinity Encounter, but I knew that unhurried time with God was the key to daily spiritual health.  The moment was sobering and definitely came from God.

Moving forward I recognize that there is no substitute for it.  Time with God that is unhurried and free from restrictions is a nonnegotiable.  Behind it is spiritual growth, a healthy family life, and a ministry that bears eternal fruit.  My prayer for each of us is that we seek our savior daily in the fashion that He deserves.

God Bless, Justin

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