If you have ever lived in a house with multiple levels, you’ve probably set things at bottom of the stairs intending to take them up at a later time to their designated location. For example, I feel like I am constantly setting toys on the bottom step of our stairs to be taken up to the appropriate child’s room. How all of their toys seem to end up on the wrong level of our home is beyond me. In my head, it makes sense to wait until there are multiple items to be taken upstairs before I make the trip up. Lazy you might say. I like the word efficient better. Nevertheless, what ends up happening is I have too many items and end up dropping things on the way up, having to make multiple trips anyway so, joke’s on me.
The Holy Spirit used even this minuscule task to speak to me one day. Why do I set things aside that need to be taken up to God now, not at a later time? Why do I wait until there are so many things I need to take up before I actually take them up? Hear me out, let’s say I get a message from someone saying “Hey can you pray for me? I’m trying to decide if I should take a new job or not.” I immediately respond “Absolutely”, set it aside, and go about my busy day. Later I see something on the news that makes me think, “wow that’s terrible I should pray for that family”, I set it aside, and once again go about my day.
All of these little toy sized prayer requests get set aside with the intention of praying a real deep prayer later during my quiet time, all at once. I’ll admit to you here, I forget stuff. I end up not praying for those people or situations because my hands and mind are too full. What if we took the time to stop for literally one minute and pray for someone or something when the opportunity presented itself? I’ll tell you right now I would be talking to God all day. How awesome would that be. What if, instead of telling someone we will pray for them, we stop and pray with them? When I had this thought, I immediately felt the devil trying to convince me that I didn’t have time to talk to God all day. I didn’t have time to pray every time something came up. Let me tell you this Momma, you don’t have the time NOT to pray every time something comes up. I challenge you to this! Today, give this a go. Every time you feel the urge from the Holy Spirit to pray, or take something up to God, DO IT!
Bible Verse: “Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you” (Jeremiah 29:12).
Something to think about: What do you have sitting on the stairs that you need to carry up to Jesus today?
Prayer: Father, reveal to me when I am setting things aside. Open my heart to see when I should stop and take a moment to pray and converse with you. I do not want to give the devil any control over my conversations with you. Help me to not believe the lie that I do not have time to pray. Give me time to pray. Show me where those pockets of time are so that I can spend them with you.
This has been a conviction for years. (I’m so embarrassed to say.) Always the devil in my ear saying how weird I’ll look in the middle of public, or how awkward that would be, or what if I said the wrong things. Instead, how could that be an example to my children, how could that be an encouragement to that person, how could it be an encouragement to my own faith?! Thanks for stepping on my toes with this one.