THE PAUSE THAT REFRESHES Part 2

(If you have not read part 1, please read it first before reading this)

Over the 33 plus years that I have been a pastor I cannot begin to tell you how many times that people have told me that they needed a midweek bible study to fill up their tank, or to get to church on Sunday because they are so spiritually dry. I would see coming into church looking tired, beaten, distracted, struggling to enter into worship, and fidgety during preaching. Sometimes, during the singing or the sermon there would be a breakthrough and they would encounter God, get filled up, and would leave the service refreshed. But then, by Sunday afternoon or Monday morning, or the next day after study, they feel empty and God seems distant. Where is God now?

It reminds me of a gas station; you go there to fill up your gas tank. Once your tank is filled, you drive away until the car needs refilling again. Your car is filled, you don't hang out at the gas station, you drive away to go where you want to go.

Sadly, this is the way many of us approach the Christian life. The problem is that the way we approach communion with God is to relate God like a gas station instead of as a real ongoing day by day, moment by moment intimate relationship with Him. In short, we relate to God in order to get something from God that will last the day or the week and it does not last.

So I suggested last time what communion and intimacy with God really means. It is not merely spending time with God in order to get something from Him (Though you always do as a result); it is being with God in order to be close with Him and to enjoy His fellowship and presence.

I challenged us to learn to incorporate "sabbath" moments and days and seasons into our life. I called it "the pause that refreshes". To Sabbath is to cease, to stop, and to pause from our busy days in order to "be still and know that He is God" (Psalm 46:10).These are radical, lifer-giving, relationship building, soul enhancing acts that impact not only our relationship with God, but also impact every other relationship and activity that we have on this earth. To take the pause that refreshes is a powerful declaration that we make about God, ourselves, our relationships, our beliefs, our priorities, and our values.

How do we busy American Christians realistically take the pause that refreshes and incorporate it into our daily lives? It starts by the resetting of our entire lives towards a new destination: "Knowing God and enjoying Him forever." It means following the pattern of those who have taken the pause that refreshes in their own lives. Like:
David who practiced set times of prayer seven times a day (Psalm 119:164).
Daniel who prayed three times a day( Daniel 6:10).
Like Jesus who intentionally and frequently went away from His disciples and the needy crowds in order to pray and commune with the Father (Matthew 14;23; Luke 6;12; 9:28; Mark 1:35; Luke 5;16).
Like Jesus' disciples who after the resurrection of Jesus continued to pray at certain hours of the day( Acts 3:1;10:9)

Fundamentally, all of these people realized that stopping to commune with the Lord and become aware of His presence was very important for their lives. It was not merely a duty or a ritual, it was a deep longing and an insatiable desire. I believe this is the key to creating a habitual, continual, and welcome awareness and easy familiarity with the presence of God throughout the day. in short, we can learn as Brother Lawrence used to say, "to practice the presence of God".

When we begin to set aside small moments of time throughout our day for morning, midday, and evening prayer, it infuses into all my daily activities and my busy schedule my life a deeper sense of God. A deeper sense of God brings a deeper sense of the sacredness of each moment of my life.

I am not trying to add a burden to your life to include one more duty. What I want to do is offer you a wonderful new way "wanting to be with God" rather than "having to be with God". I want to help you learn to slow down the pace and bring balance between your activities and times of being in communion with God.

If God stopped after creation, if Jesus stopped to be with the Father; then, if we stop our work and activities to pause and rest for a day (Sabbath) or for mini-Sabbath's each day, we reflect His image, bring Him much glory (1 Corinthians 10:31; Philippians 1:21), and will increase our joy.

Stopping to be with God is the key to creating a continual and easy familiarity with the presence of God throughout your day. When you develop a rhythm of "stopping" and pausing in your life, it makes a sense, an awareness, and a practice of the presence of God possible. There is a biblical truth that God is always present in our life. Theologically we define it as His "omnipresence" (Joshua 1:5; Psalm 139:7; Jeremiah 23:24;Matthew 18:20; 28:20; Acts 18:10;Hebrews 13:5). The presence of God is a wonderful ongoing reality in our lives. Much of the time though, we aren't aware of His presence. Remember Jacob's own experience of God in Haran? After awakening from his sleep he cried out, "Surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it" (Genesis 28:17). Or how about Job who after God's dealings with him said,"I have heard about you but now my eye sees You" (Job 42:5). Jacob and Job experienced what is called the "manifest presence of God". This is what the pause that refreshes is meant to do for you; to awaken you throughout the day to the ongoing reality that God is present with you in the car, at the office, with your kids screaming, at the beach, in the city, on a desert island, when you are tempted, or when your visible circumstances are overwhelming.

Taking the pause that refreshes throughout the day helps me to surrender, to trust, to listen, to wait, to let go, and to receive the Father's love, fresh grace and help from the throne that I need throughout the day. Most of all, setting aside moments during my day infuses into the rest of my days activity a sense that everything I do is sacred, because everything I do is coram deo, to live before the face of God. Coram Deo is to live one’s entire life in the presence of God, under the authority of God, to the glory of God. It is a life that is open before God. It is a life in which all that is done is done as to the Lord. It is a life lived by principle, not expediency; by humility before God, not defiance. It is a life lived under the tutelage of conscience that is held captive by the Word of God.There is no more separation of the religious and the non-religious; the spiritual and the non-spiritual; and the sacred and the secular. All time is His. Every moment He is with us.

Next time I will give you some ideas on how each one of you can begin throughout the busy day taking the pause that refreshes.

A prayer:

Father in heaven,
I want my life, Oh Lord,to be an answer to your love for me; my actions and my words, my thoughts and my dreams-all a response to the great reality of Your presence in Jesus.AMEN