Sharpened Together - 7 October

A white-tailed deer drinks from the creek; I want to drink God, deep drafts of God. I’m thirsty for God-alive. I wonder, “Will I ever make it— arrive and drink in God’s presence?” ‭‭Psalms‬ ‭42‬:‭1‬-‭2 MSG‬‬

I have a question for you: how much do you want to hang out with God?
Is it as much as the picture from scripture of a deer drinking water in?
This year has been a journey for me. A journey to prioritising to a much greater extent having a quiet time with God on a daily basis. My amazing wife came up with a spirit inspired prayer structure called LIP CITER which stands for:
Listen
Inward (look)
Praise
Confess
Intercede
Thanksgiving
Everything
Requests

I have been using this structure and found it to be a great help to focus my prayers and to be consistently covering key items that I desire to lift up to God. Over a weekend recently though I found myself negotiating how much prayer I could get away with. To still “tick a box” and be able to get on with my day. I had just spent a bit over an hour catching up on sport clips and trolling social media and I found God convicting me all I was willing to invest was a maximum of 10-15 mins in His presence.

I could explain this away all i liked but if Christ is genuinely my Lord and Saviour I knew my actions were not right. Amongst the busyness of life, when tiredness can draw us to take an easy road, we need to find a new path into His presence. Our motivation should be to spend as much time as we can in his presence. Ultimately, it is not about time spent as it could be 5 mins in a day that could be impactful to hear God’s voice.

As a next step can I ask that this week you do two things:
1. Have a chat today to one of the brothers in your circle about your quiet times with God. 
2. Ask one of the guys in your circle how their quiet times are going.

Let’s be iron sharpening iron in this area.