01 Jan Practising The Presence Of God And Spiritual Disciplines 2022
My sharing is just my personal way of spending time with God. Everyone is different but these have worked for me to grow in intimacy with God. I hope it blesses you too.
Daily
I have cultivated a habit of talking to God once I open my eyes in the morning, along the core ideas of: “Good morning Lord. I thank you for a good night sleep and a beautiful day you have created. Thank you for your new mercies and grace this new day. Lord I love you and I want to love you more. I want to trust and obey you more today. Lord hold my hand and guide my steps as you lead me through today and I follow. I commit this day to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. To live is Christ, to die is gain.”
I spend about an hour on average in the morning going through a simple Daily Bread devotion, worship of about 30mins, bible reading and prayers for about 30 mins. If I do not have enough time in the morning, I try to find other small windows in the day to do any of these 4 things which I have not done in the morning.
Before and after each activity throughout the day, I tend to take a moment to be with God. Committing a meeting to God or thanking Him for a good meal etc.
Throughout the day, I take ad-hoc time to be with God if I feel tired, stressed or when I simply needed to refresh myself in the presence of God. This can happen in the toilet cubicle for 1 min or sitting somewhere by myself for a while etc.
Most of the moments when I’m alone, I tend to have a conversation with God. This can be washing dishes, hanging clothes, waiting for bus, jogging, massage etc. Actually many times, my conversation is just … God, God, God.. no content haha.. but just turning to Him.
When I’m doing my work I do consult him, say I’m writing an email reply, I just ask Him. “Is this reply ok?”
At night, the family prays together before sleeping.
I end the night with a private prayer along the lines of: “Goodnight Lord. May the Holy Spirit convict me of my sins today. Where have I done well Lord? Thank you for leading the way Lord. Where have I not done well? I repent and turn away from it. Lord help me. Thank you Lord.”
Weekly
I fast and pray on Mondays to start the week. I usually skip 2 meals and take either lunch or dinner. For either lunch or dinner that I fast, I spend some time with God.
I start the week on Monday morning with a “meeting with Jesus my Chairman” in prayers and worship to “discuss” what He wants me to do for work this week.
I try my best (not very successful in 2021, I do want to keep the Sabbath in 2022) to keep Sunday totally free so that I spend extended time with everything to do with God and family.
Yearly
Spiritual retreat of at least 3 days 2 nights, ideally offsite with no kids and no devices. This is the time to seek God on the direction of my life for the few years ahead.
I fast and pray for 40days straight 2 times a year. (not always successful!) I usually do this somewhere before Easter and Christmas.
Environment
I surround myself with worship songs almost all the time, in the car, in my phone when I take public transport, at home etc
In all my social media, I subscribe to a variety of Godly content.
In my email, I subscribe to a variety of Godly content too. Such as devotional daily email from My Utmost From His Highest. Highly recommended, one of my favourites!
As a family we mostly choose faith based movies and dramas. My kids still love it for now. May be much harder when they grow up. That’s another post for Parenting I guess.
It may seem overwhelming. The truth is for me, I cannot carry on living without such nourishment for the soul. For example, I loved listening to music and I still do like secular music. However I really find that I love worship music much better than secular music now. Somehow the things of the world really does seem strangely dim when our spiritual eyes and ears are open to the things of the Kingdom of Heaven.
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