bible+prayer

As someone who easily blew off quiet times/one-on-one times with Jesus/reading my Bible/praying for so long, I am sooo convicted when I slack off in this area. I can hear the things I say, the thoughts I think, the way I behave when I don't spend time with Him in comparison to when I do. There is such a difference. God has recently showed me more of His power in my life when I am taking time out of my day to learn more about Him away from everyone and everything else. So I want to say how key this devotional can will be when everyone is actively engaging their minds and hearts. I am so excited to see what He teaches us.

That being said, when I was looking at the "WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR TODAY AS WE PREPARE FOR SERVING ON HOUSEBOATS?" part, I saw that I get to not hide from Jesus, change from my sinful self, be honest, confess, and give all of myself to Him. I can confidently say this is not fully possible without individual time in the word and prayer every day. Those repercussions I just mentioned are accomplished and being accomplished in all of us through these precious times with Him. This is the relationship talked about in the beginning of the devotional. When I hear John saying, "Look...look... lift up your eyes, get your eyes on Him, stop looking to people, they are not as important as Him, look it's the Son of God, who takes away the sin of the world!" I am hearing "look, lift up your eyes, read your Bible, talk to Him, get to know Him, get to know who Jesus is!" God keeps reminding me how important it is, and that in order to know Him and answer the question "Who is Jesus?" our relationship and our days spent together need to be grounded in conversations (bible+prayer).

Side note: John says, "I am the voice of one calling in the wilderness, 'Make straight the way for the Lord." I also love the imagery of John in the wilderness yelling out "Make straight the way for the LORD!!!" I see him walking around, not knowing where He's going or what is going to happen. You don't know what's up ahead in the wilderness. That's how I want us to be this summer and through this devotional. I don't know about you guys, but this summer looks like a wilderness to me. We don't get to know what's going to happen, but we get to call to each other through it saying, "Get ready for Jesus! He's coming! Summer 2013!" My prayer is that we can be preparing over these next two months by yelling to each other in the flat out wilderness, encouraging one another to make our ways straight for Him. I have no idea if this imagery is biblical, but I'm just gonna go with it.