The Stream Of God’s Presence Series

The Stream of God’s Presence

We are continuing in our series on Supernatural Springs and this month our focus is on the Stream of God’s presence.

The question as always to begin:

How much quality time do you spend with God?

We may spend some time with God each day, but how much of that is real quality time?

Sometimes we can allow the busyness of daily life to crowd out quality time with God.

We can rush off a quick prayer, just glance through our daily devotional, read part of the bible without taking anything in.

If we really want to experience the presence of God in our lives we need to make the time to actually connect with Him.

The Author C.S. Lewis wrote, “The moment you wake up each morning, all your wishes and hopes for the day rush at you like wild animals. And the first job each morning consists of shoving it all back, in listening to that other voice, taking that other point of view, letting that other, larger, stronger, quieter life come flowing in.”

During a typical day we can allow life to crowd out time with God, or we can choose to spend real quality time with Him.

We all need to take an opportunity to step aside from the busyness of life and just be still in the presence of God.

In the fast, busy, do it now, instant world that we live in, we need to press pause, be still and pray.

Psalm 46:10 says: “Be still, and know that I am God!”

That’s good advice isn’t it. We need to avoid getting so caught up in our own agenda that we force God out of the way.

When we take the time to be still, when we take the time to pray, God listens.

God is always available, He is never too busy to listen, but too often we lose our focus, God is meant to be at the centre of our lives, not pushed to the side or ignored.

We need to be still and pray and draw near to Him.

We need to be a people of prayer.

We need to come before God with our thanks, our requests, our praise, our adoration, our confession of sin, our prayers for guidance.

We need to take the time to be still and pray.

We need to take the time to experience the presence of God in our lives.

It is said that prayer changes things, I believe prayer also changes the pray er, the person who prays.

In His presence we receive comfort,

we receive strength,

we receive peace,

we receive guidance.

Prayer must be central to our lives, we must never allow ourselves to be too busy to pray.

Our deepest needs are met by God through prayer.

Satan hates it when God’s people pray,

he is happy when we allow other things to get in the way so that we do not take the time to pray.

Maybe some people find it easier to act Christian than to spend time with God in prayer.

But God desires a real relationship with us.

We need to spend time talking to Him.

Quality time - not just thirty seconds here, or two minutes there.

Time with God is never wasted time.

We must make time for Him.

God wants us to pray to Him and meet with Him, He wants us to experience His presence in our lives.

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Has there ever been a time in your life when you felt as though God was not present?

Silence is something most of us aren’t comfortable with. Even 20-30 seconds of silence can seem like an eternity.

Has there ever been a time when it felt like God was silent?

Have you ever been in a situation where you called out to God, when you prayed because you desperately needed to sense His presence and hear His voice

but you felt as though He was absent?

If you can say, “Yes,” you’re not alone.

God’s own son, Jesus, had the same experience.

As he hung on a cross, he cried out, “My God, my God why have you forsaken me?”

Why do you remain silent in the midst of my pain? Why are you silent when I need you the most?

Understanding God’s silence isn’t easy, because our tendency is to interpret the silence as indifference.

When we are in the midst of a crisis,

when we’re in the midst of making an important decision we can pray:

“God, help me make this decision.”

“God if you’ll only show me what to do, then I’ll do it.” “God, I need to know how to deal with this situation, please show me.” And... nothing – we get silence.

We don’t understand it, and it can be very frustrating.