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What I Want

Writer's picture: Brian BarlowBrian Barlow

This morning’s devotion started somewhat unusually, with pen in hand right from the start. Yesterday’s quiet time didn’t really happen, despite my best efforts, due to a small host of reasons. So, before today’s host showed up, I needed to focus (journal) my gripes and fears into a prayer I could see. Granted, “I want…” might be far inferior to, and less spiritual than, “Lord, what do you want?”, but humor me before you judge.


Lord. I want…


-if possible, a slow & quiet start to the day, just you & I, to be cleansed from the works of the flesh, to be refreshed, to hear You speak, and to forsake my frantic striving and busyness. Note: Some etymologists trace the word “busyness” to the Old English, “bisignes”, meaning “care”, “anxiety”, or “occupation”, thus the word “business”. Hmm…


When my ministering and worship degenerate into mere busyness (business), I am in real danger of having reduced the spiritual to the material, substituting the relational for the merely transactional, intimacy for intensity, “the bottom line” for the lowest place (as was chosen by Mary in contrast to Martha), to valuing output & outcomes at the expense of devotion and sweet communion, which puts me at tremendous risk of becoming a spiritual casualty, rather than the unshakably devoted, God-pleasing, and fruitful disciple of Jesus I desire to be, set apart for the Lord’s honor and good pleasure (how’s that for a champion run on sentence?!).


That’s the first in a series of wants that I want to share with you here…if you want, of course.

So — what do you want today?


Shalom,

Brian




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