Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Philippians 4:6-7 

As many of you know, part of my own spiritual disciplines for this year is the daily devotional reading of “Jesus Calling” by Sarah Young. I try to read it in the mornings or at night before I go to bed, depending on how the day rolls.  I found a portion of today’s reading, April 1 to be spot on for my life during this busy Easter season:

I am calling you to a life of constant communion with Me. Basic training means learning to live above your circumstances, even while interacting on that cluttered plane of life. You yearn for a simplified lifestyle so that your communication with Me can be uninterrupted. But I challenge you to relinquish the fantasy of an uncluttered world. Accept each day just as it comes. And find Me in the midst of it all… Remember your ultimate goal is not to control or fix everything around you. It is to keep communing with Me. …

I find myself often falling into the trap that Sarah describes in her devotional, of believing that intimacy with God is somehow only possible in a fantasy world of simplicity in which I arise every morning refreshed after a full night of sleep, brew a pot of Jamaican Blue Mountain Coffee and sit in a lounge chair with an unobstructed view of the beach or the mountains and spend an hour of quiet contemplation, reading my Bible, meditating on scripture and then journaling my thoughts before stepping into a pleasant and unhurried day. To be perfectly candid, that rarely happens.  Kids, schedules, church emergencies, broken faucets, phone calls, overscheduled appointments and interstate traffic are more the norm.

That is not to say that we shouldn’t carve out time alone with God or be intentional in prioritizing time with the Father… we absolutely should and I hope you do. But there is a danger in being held hostage to the type of idealized spirituality we wish we had, or think others have (and we don’t), or have been told that we must have. And then when we fail to achieve it, as we invariably do,  we come to believe that we are second-class believers and that intimacy with the Father is impossible until our circumstances become more manageable. So… I will have time to grow in Christ after the kids get out of diapers, or when I don’t have an hour commute or when we are empty nesters or… fill in the blank.

What if God is wanting to meet you in the chaos of normal life? What if growth is possible, not in spite of our busy schedules, but in the midst of them? As we walk in union with Christ we learn to hear, respond and give thanks in all circumstances, for this is the will of God for you in Christ Jesus (1 Thessalonians 5:13). LIFE becomes worship. 

So savor and look forward to times of uninterrupted quiet time with the Lord. But also look for him in your next circumstance.  He is there, waiting to speak to you.