How much time do you actually spend with Christ, not just those moments you are reading, and hopefully studying His word, but just the time that you are simply sitting and contemplating who He is. Not what He has done and is doing, just Him, His nature, His character. My guess would be not that much time, but perhaps I am wrong, but when the world and all of its needs are not calling, many of us are searching for the next thing to do, the next task that needs to be accomplished. Clean a little more of the house, perhaps water the plants, or some other item that will keep us busy until it is time to retire, so that tomorrow we can fulfill the same obligations for the same reasons, the need to not contemplate.
Many will shy away from these moments of quite solitude, their minds on nothing but the Almighty, for many reasons, but I believe the most prevalent one is just simply a lack of a desire to grow closer to Him. You see, the closer we draw to the Savior, the less we see value in anything in this world, all tasks become menial and irrelevant, for none of those items we spend so much time on are going to be here tomorrow, or someday soon after that. When we sit and obey the Word of God to “Be still and know that I am God,” (Psalm 46:10) God will actually speak to us, and then we might become convicted. Conviction for Christ lessons our desire for not only the world, but for self, and self my friends will fight to the death to stay alive.
The more time we spend contemplating the Scriptures, the more we see, and hopefully understand His grace, mercy, and love, but the amount of time that we actually spend in quite moments, before the Lord is relative to our desire to be made more into the image of Christ each day, to die to self, to give no thought to what “needs” to be done tomorrow, but how we are being asked to serve today. We need as humans to feel some sense of worth, self-worth, even if it is expressed only within ourselves and never heard from another person concerning ourselves, for those who have an insatiable desire for recognition, it is the driving force behind their very natures. Adam wanted more for himself, all men do, but therein lies the path of pride.
When we spend time in contemplation of the Lord, not His attributes, not the deeds He has performed, all the way from before the foundation of the world right up to the last breath you just took, but just on Him, we come as close to the throne room of the Almighty as we will ever be in this mortal shell. And that is why we do not participate in this endeavor, He may ask something of us, something that will require of us more than we want to give up. But you will never know the fulness of Christ unless you know Him personally. Through your prayers you speak to Him, through your life He shows you the blessings that are given to you and those waiting for all His children, but in quite contemplation we see His face, we feel His heart, we are shown who we are in Him and how much we are loved. Is anything that you have planned for today worthy of losing that time with Him?
