It seems strange.  We’re only 1 month into what is officially summer on the calendar and yet my kids are getting ready to start back to school at the end of this week and next week.  It’s a very strange feeling to have what is summer vacation come to an end so quickly.  Anyway, I pray everyone has had a great summer.  For us, it has been a wild and busy summer.  For us, summer is usually marked with baseball and softball tournaments.  We spend a great deal of time running around with our kids to allow them to pursue what it is they love.  We also had the opportunity to take our oldest to visit the college he is hoping to attend a year from now.

In all of that busyness, we’ve tried to make sure we have down time as a family.  Time to get to the beach for an escape or just spend time vegging a home, fishing, or whatever else we may do.  It can certainly wear on you over time, but I love every bit of it as long as our kids love what it is their pursing and do.  I know we’re not the only ones that are faced with such busy lives.  I know plenty that do way more than we do.

We get faced with a challenge when it comes to these busy times.  Still being able to walk with God and hear Him through all of the noise and chaos of the busy life.  This has become a very important part of my life and I know that through the chaos, I need to able to focus on the Lord.  Not just on occasion, but daily.  He helps me to put it all back into focus.  To clear my brain and ensure I do my best to keep Him first in my daily life.  I find when I don’t, it can be real easy to fall away.

In the Sacred Romance, John Eldredge and Ben Curtis share, “God is not “out there somewhere” in some dramatic way, waiting to commune with us by earthquake or fire or signs in the sky. Instead, he desires to talk with us in the quietness of our own heart through his Spirit, who is in us. It is his voice that has whispered to us about a Sacred Romance.”  We have to learn to stop and listen for Him in our hearts.  To discern His voice from all of the other clutter that tries to flood our hearts and our minds everyday.

I’ve shared this before, and some of you may do this, but one of the best ways I have found to lock onto God each day is to start my morning in conversation and prayer with Him first thing, before I do anything else.  When all else is quite around you, and before the clutter of the day begins to flood your mind, this is such a great time to just meditate on the Word, journal my thoughts, and just pray.  It’s sets the pace for the whole day.  So through the busy life of the summer months, I have found it important to start my mornings this way.  If I don’t, and there are some mornings where I’ve missed my morning meeting with God, it weighs on me through the day and I feel like I am not as equipped and armored for the day.

Throughout our year, we are faced with such busy lives.  We keep on going day in and day out.  We may forget that we need that time with God to hear Him, talk with Him, and walk with Him.  He desires this from each of us.  To be an intimate part of our lives as His children.  The stream of Walking with God in discipleship sets the pace for everything else in our lives and the other 3 streams.  It enables us to armor for the spiritual warfare we face, to hear God’s counsel for our lives, and know the deep restoration that is offered through Jesus.  All 4 streams are important, but we need this one to really set the tone.

Find a way in our daily life to hear God and talk with Him.  Just you and Him.  It is possible to find that time if we are just willing to do so.  The rest of the world can wait.  I promise you that.  There is nothing so important in this life that it should distract you from an intimate and conversational relationship with God.  He wants that intimacy with you and we need to allow Him to come in.  Don’t let busyness and task after task run your life ahead of that.

“Whether or not God will speak to and through you, and how often, depends largely on how regular you are in making time for personal communion with God and on how faithful you are in submitting yourself to Him and waiting for Him.” – Basilea Schlink