Cultivating God Spaces
"Wherever you make space for Me, I will fill it."
This is the phrase I heard whispered to my heart one early afternoon as I was going about my day. For years, I have had my daily times with Him. Expectantly, I wait with an open journal for His voice and spend time studying the Word. Time with Him has become my favorite part of my day. This was the space I continually gave Him and He always filled it. It was here I began to learn to hear His voice and be able to distinguish it from my own.
Now He was asking me to make space in the small moments of my everyday. He was inviting me to not only sit with Him in my confined morning times, but to walk with Him throughout my day; to make space for Him and to increase my awareness of Him moment by moment. It had never occurred to me that any space I made for Him, He would fill, but of course He would. He never turns away a hungry soul.
He is moving, acting and surrounding us in our everyday lives. However, most of us live largely unaware of Him and what He is doing around us. It's not because He is not moving; it's because we cannot see. I have heard this called 'functional atheism.' Living with the BELIEF in God without walking WITH God. We can say we believe in God but functionally live as if He does not exist. He is not an idea to ascribe to, but a living and loving God who desires us to live our lives interactively with Him.
This little phrase He spoke to me that summer afternoon opened up a whole new world for me. I began to see He is eager to be a part of everything in our day we invite Him into: our hopes, our dreams, our parenting, our friendships, our marriages, our work, our interactions with strangers, our fears, our hurts, our struggles, our disappointments, our joys our successes and all other things that make up our lives. He wasn't asking for me to follow more principles, but live life WITH Him. When we do that, He conforms us into His image and our desires become aligned with His. We quit living FOR God and start living life WITH God. These are two very different things.
He was wanting to burst out of that little space I had carved out for Him and live my life with me moment by moment. He had been knocking at the door of my everyday, ordinary life, but I was so busy I often didn't hear. When I started paying attention, I noticed He started interrupting me. He would interrupt conversations with our kids telling me not to say something I was going to say and giving me something wiser to say instead. He would speak random things to my heart. I would be struggling with something and a word of comfort would interrupt my chaotic thoughts. A person would drop into my mind and instead of thinking it was random, I would discover it was God who put that friend on my heart. The more I began noticing, the more I began recognizing the faint interruptions I had been feeling were actually God's voice.
Revelation 3:20 says, "See! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him and he with me."
For most of my life, I believed this verse was talking about the ones who don't know Him. This is what is widely taught, but this verse was given to the church of Laodicea. The church of Laodica was wealthy and didn't see their need. They were self-sufficient. When we don't see a need to involve God in our everyday, we too are self-sufficient, but He still stands knocking at the door of our day. He is not wanting to come in to shame us, but to have a deeper and intimate relationship with us. This is what He is inviting all of us into, but oftentimes our lives are so noisy we don't hear the knocking. Living life with an awareness of God is what scholar and theologian, Dallas Willard, means when he uses the phrase 'the With God Life.'
The 'With God Life' is not something that happens to us, but is something we cultivate. In Mark 4, we read the parable of the sower and the different kinds of soil. The seed fell along the path where the birds came and devoured it, in the rocky soil where it was scorched by the sun, among the thorns where it was choked and in the good soil where it grew.
I used to read this and hope I wasn't one of the 'bad' soils. I thought my soil or the readiness of my heart happened to me. It never occurred to me that the soil of my heart was MY job. So often, we try to make good things grow in our life, but we don't understand why no matter how hard we try, it doesn't seem good things are growing despite our best intentions. I used to think that good works would put me in the 'good soil' category. Good works don't create good soil though.
I have learned we can be very involved in church activities and good works and also have very uncultivated hearts. Immersing ourselves in more church activities or doing more good doesn't cultivate our hearts. In fact, oftentimes a lot of activity masks our uncultivated souls.
Our hearts are cultivated in God's presence. We can begin to structure our lives a way to make space for God no matter what season we are in. It's not a behavior but a relationship, though the relationship will change our behavior without a doubt. It is not an effort to get God to move, but opens our eyes to see His movements in and around us that are already happening. He will always take as much space as we will give Him.
Creating space for him will look different in every life and in every season. He showed me if I create a five minute space, He will fill it. If I create a six hour space, He will fill it. He fills small moments too. If I pause for a second in the middle of a disagreement with someone and turn my attention toward God, He will fill the pause and give wisdom. If I am driving in the car and my thoughts turn towards Him, He will fill the space. My husband has found in the middle of his very busy days, if he sets an alarm at certain intervals, he can pause for a minute and turn his thoughts towards God and God meets him there. When I had babies, even in the middle of the crying, I would turn my thoughts towards Him and He would fill that moment. God loves to and knows how to meet us where we are at.
It doesn't have to be silent, it doesn't have to be long, it doesn't have to feel sacred, but sacred it will be. Where you are, there He is - knocking. It doesn't have to be fancy or hard. Start where you are, but just know that if you make space for Him, He will fill it. Let's cultivate awareness of Him.
