Quiet Times

Currently, I am reading 2 books. Dont Waste Your Life by John Piper and Mountain Rain by Eileen Crossman. Mountain Rain is a biography of James Fraser, who at only 22 years old abandoned a promising engineering career to go and bring the Good News of Christ to the Lisu people of the Yunnan provine in China. This book is really good, and I am gaining so much insight from it. Last night, I was reading about a few temptations that he struggled with when first arriving in China. When I think about temptations, I always think about things like Jesus in the desert or various temptations that we normally struggle with such as idolatry, etc. But he spoke about the temptation he had to slacken his communion with God.

Here is some from the book...
Once again, discipline became all important to him in maintaining his walk with God. He had to get up early, before the inn grew lively and distracting. He soon found prayer haunts in places on the hills, different ones for different weather. A habit he formed early was to walk up and down, praying aloud, talking as a man talks to his friend. Sometimes he would pray for the city as he sat and looked over it from the hills.

How many of us do this on a regular basis? Man...I can really relate to slackening in my communion with God. What? A misso slacking? Yes, we are human too! Sometimes, those doing God's work get so busy with His work that we forget about Him. In Thailand, we had a friend speak about this and how when you neglect God and forget about Him...that is a really bad place to be. I remember crying on Shane's shoulder while she was speaking because I knew in my heart that she was speaking for us as well. You get so wrapped up in working for God that you forget about God and your time with Him. I dont think our work was about going to Vietnam or even about spreading the Gospel. I KNOW what it was about....it was about Me...and God changing me and working in my life. My friend, Stephanie, told me that one time. As an overseas worker, I always though everything came back to Vietnam or the Vietnamese people, but it didnt. It was about God drawing me close to him and teaching me to be who I am suppose to be in Him.