Freezers

If you took a look in our freezer yesterday you’d have wondered what was going on. The door was open, and it was empty of all but ice.

In my defence it was actually turned off at the time, and defrosting – it’s not a fancy frost-free version, so needs regular defrosting if you want to actually, you know, close the door without breaking something, let’s say, just for example – and I’m speaking for a friend here – the rear corner of a drawer which was forced through a gap it could no longer fit through due to ice build up…until it breaks.

Alarm Clocks

While looking at my freezer I thought about the need for planning ahead. That’s where my alarm clock comes in: when I go to bed I set the time I want to wake up at, knowing I’ll be up on time.

Like my freezer, my alarm clock needs regular maintenance too – like recharging the internal battery, and actually switching on the alarm clock function. Turns out that setting the alarm doesn’t automatically make it go ‘beep beep’ in the morning. Who knew!?!

What’s that got to do with me?

Walking is simply the perpetual state of preventing ourselves from falling forwards, or backwards – speed up the process and you’re running; lose your balance and you’ll be chewing the dirt. Balance is key for walking, and I think that’s true in our lives with God too!

If we want to feel close to God, we need to regularly close the door to the world around us. Otherwise we just end up burning out our motor just trying to keep up with the all the excess issues increasingly building up around us (like ice in a freezer) until we cease to function as intended at all.

And I say ‘feel close to God’ because He is omnipresent, so it should be impossible to ‘feel’ close to Him, or not.

When Jesus was nailed to that old wooden cross, He literally took upon Himself the sins of the world from the whole of time. And what did God then do? He turned His face away from His only son. How much further apart can you possibly feel than right there in that moment?

Feeling close to God, then, is very much an ongoing, daily reality for us all: if you want to feel close to God you need to do what is necessary in order that God won’t turn His face away from you and one of the simplest ways of doing this is obeying the words of Matthew 6:6 – and [regularly] go into a private room, close the door and spend time with God, and only God.

Do you have time and space to be alone with God each day? Maybe that seems impossible in your situation. But if you want to avoid burning out, plan ahead and set aside a righteously protected, daily, moment with God.

Andy B