Rearranging the Furniture
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“I have calmed myself and quieted my ambitions. I am like a weaned child with its mother; like a weaned child I am content (no longer ravenously seeking self-satisfaction)” (Psalm 131:2).
While visiting friends in another country, we were somewhat surprised when they announced that they were inviting many neighbors into their home to meet us. While their house is comfortable and certainly adequate for a few people, we wondered how a larger group could be accommodated.
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Imagine our surprise on the appointed evening to see more than twenty people comfortably seated. Our hosts had moved most of the furniture out of the room. Chairs lined the edges of the space and one low table in the center was laid with plates of cookies and pots of tea. The room had been rearranged for this new purpose.
Many Christians desire a deeper relationship with God, hearts ache for an intimacy not yet experienced. Books are read, seminars attended, groups formed for discussion and prayer, but little change occurs.
Could it be that our lives need rearranging?
Some pieces of furniture—activities, responsibilities—may need moving out of the schedule. We may need to learn how to use available time—the chairs—more wisely.
In her book, Sacred Rhythms, Ruth Haley Barton beautifully writes about how often our lives, even our religious lives, crowd out the spaces where God wants to meet us. She emphasized that we must make a concerted effort to arrange our lives for spiritual transformation, perhaps unplugging technology, clearing the calendar, creating extended time for our souls to meet with God. Our Father will meet us whenever we make room for Him.
God, I put so much furniture into my life that I often crowd you out. Help be become a better “interior decorator.” Amen.
Questions: Are you crowding God out of your life with too many activities? Which activities would you consider would need to be the first to be set aside?
About the Author Marilyn J. Ehle
6 Responses to “Rearranging the Furniture”
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Amen! Arlett, Thanks so much for your reply…will be lifting you in prayer as well.
Dear Barbara,
I hear you. I lost my job over a year ago and am now uneasy about even trying to go back to work…should I find a job. I have spent countless hours wondering what to do with my time. How can I be and feel useful and needed. What does my life amount to? Sometimes the worry and feelings of failure are overwhelming. But then I remember that the enemy uses things like this to bring us to sin and to him. Sometimes the hardest part of the day is the quiet time. Sometimes the hardest thing to do is to be still and know He is God. It is trusting the Lord, surrendering control and being patient ( so hard). Often when I have been lost it has been because I am trying to follow a path that is not His will for me. Take heart, sister. You are so precious and worthwhile. Be aware that the enemy uses the things we value of this world to lure us into the darkness of his. I will pray for you and I hope you for me too.
Kinda at a lost today. Only want GOD’s will to be done and not my own. I’m at the other end of this devotional today for I sense that I do not have enough to do with the time given. Today I just desperatly want this life to be over and done with. Sorry ladies for such negativism….please pray that such mindset shall pass and joy will enter in again.
Thanks for this Marilyn, I felt exactly like that this morning. I’m glad that God that has made me aware of this. I’m on a journey to try and be still before the Lord, so I can hear Him again directing me.
God bless!
great analogy!! Thank you. Rearranging the furniture always gives you a new perspective as to whether you really need it in the space, and how faded or dirty it has become!
This week, I will finish 3 weeks of unpaid time off …. taken deliberately and at a cost, for the purpose of NO WORK schedules – to provide specifically for focus in prayer and meditation, church family relationships, and rest.
For the first couple of days, I was seemingly “at a loss” as I came out (cold turkey) of my busy-ness; then, as I continued to allow God to work instead of me filling the “void” and being concerned with “my $$.$$ need, the sweetness of His Presence has been all the more real.
I commend the “risk” to all; HE is The Faithful One and Only!