“Therefore let everyone who is godly offer prayer to you at a time when you may be found; surely in the rush of great waters, they shall not reach him” (Psalms 32:6 ESV).
I have been guilty innumerable times of pushing my quiet times aside for the sake of more sleep, or to spend that time doing other things that are more “fun.” In fact, throughout the years I’ve probably used just about every excuse there is to justify abandoning my daily quiet times. In this day and age, distractions abound and devotion decays.
It is true that we make time for the things that are most important to us. For some, it’s their jobs. They work and work until everything else in their lives, their marriages, their relationships with their children, their friendships, all fall apart. For others it’s their families. They put their loved ones before God until they realize that they don’t even know Him anymore. It can be anything at all, really. We turn the good things in our lives, things that God has blessed us with, into idols. Little “g” gods.
It starts off simply enough. We want to be good stewards of the gifts that God has given to us. And it truly is a responsibility for us to do so. Then we slowly allow our devotion to the gift overshadow our devotion to the Giver.
At times everything goes smoothly, and we don’t even realize that we have fixed our devotion somewhere other than God. We continue to go to church, and maybe even a small group, but we are just going through the motions. Church becomes merely something we do, rather than a reflection of who we are. Our identities are tied up in other things.
But sometimes things don’t go so well, and the blessings that God has given us are taken away. We cry out to God only to realize that we have set Him aside. He’s still there, but our relationship with Him has shifted from Lordship to lifeboat. We have allowed the foundation of our faith to decay and crumble, and a weak foundation makes for an unstable house; flood waters mean destruction.
Today’s verse tells us that we need to pay attention to our relationship with God, our Foundation, when life is not in chaos. We need to develop that relationship in the times of calm so that when the storms rage and the floods of life’s circumstances come, when everything around us is falling apart, our faith will remain secure. The “rush of great waters” will not reach us.
There will be occasional times when we may miss our daily time with our Father, but as a rule, our time with Him should be not only daily, but second by second. We need to mindfully ensure that our devotion to God isn’t swallowed up by life’s distractions.
Skipping Stones 