I never understood how valuable time was until I had none. I never realized how important saying no is until I had no choice but to say no. I never knew how it felt to be empty until I was, or am. However, this article isn’t about being stressed out, or being tired, or feeling alone. It’s about giving of oneself.

Being selfless is something to practice—a lifestyle that one should live. After all, just as we are His sons and daughters, we are also servants of Jesus. Too often do we come to the Lord with a complaining attitude. It is truly important to have a place of refuge in Him, of course. He is our Strong Tower, and the Bible says in 1 Peter 5:7 to cast all our cares on Him, because He cares for us. I am convinced that no one could possibly understand or love us as well as the Lord. However, it is important that we do not take His love and provision for granted! Jesus is a Spirit, yes, but how often do we ask the Lord what is stirring His heart?

All that we have and all that we are is because of Jesus. We did not create the world, and we cannot control it. The Bible says in Colossians 1:17 that by Him all things consist! If He is omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient, then why wouldn’t we want to pour out everything for Him? So often we give God the minimum requirement. We do just enough so that our consciences don’t bother us. God should be our first priority, and just as God understands that we have other obligations, He is a jealous God. He is jealous for us! A well-known quote by John F. Kennedy was, “Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.” Shouldn’t we apply that mindset to our relationships with God and spreading His gospel? After all, it takes a short amount of time to ask God for what we need, but we could spend our entire lives praising Him. Try asking God what His will for today is. You might be surprised.

I have learned most clearly in these last couple of months how important it is to be “poured out” for Him, to give Him the best of me, not just what I have left. In John 12 we read of how Mary bought an expensive ointment and honored Jesus by washing His feet. “Then took Mary a pound of ointment of spikenard, very costly, and anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped his feet with her hair: and the house was filled with the odor of the ointment” (John 12:3). Mary could have used that money to buy that strong perfume for herself, and it was most common to buy such perfume for loved ones to use on one’s body after death. But Mary, in her humility, poured out the absolute best that she could afford. She poured it all out, not even hesitating. The point is not to give until you have nothing left. The point is to give God the best of us, and the first-fruits. I know from personal experience that when you feel as if you have nothing left to give, God will be your everything, and He will sustain you, if you put Him first.

Try this week to be poured out for Jesus, and to have a more selfless mindset. You may be surprised how fantastic this week will be when you let Him take control!

“In Nepal and India, I have watched friends drop by one anothers’ homes, only to sit and remain silent — visits during which everyone was perfectly comfortable (other than myself, of course). Sometimes the silence would extend for hours, at which time a conversation, often full of laughter, would explode as if through spontaneous combustion. Then there would again be silence, which might continue until it was time to leave. These people were confused when I asked them whether they felt awkward about doing nothing together. Simply sitting, they explained, was doing something.”

For the friends that Levine observed, simply the presence of those they hold dear is plenty of activity. It does not need to be added to or scheduled. Silence is not the mark of ‘wasted’ time if it is the silence of being with others. Presence — the ability to feel the passing time together and enjoy life — is enough to captivate.

What if we held this attitude with respect to our time with God? In the hurried, friend-time-scheduling West, perhaps it is easy to forget that He wants to have a relationship with us. We have prayer conferences, prayer books, prayer breakfasts, prayer lists, prayer patterns, and prayer fads. Maybe  some of those things have their place, but in most cases they follow the larger trend of a time-obsessed world: we want to pray as long as we’re getting something else done, too. We’ll pray if it feels like we’re not wasting our time.

Imagine a friend who planned her conversations with you the way that we plan prayer to God. She might write down a list of things to talk about, but as soon as all the items had been addressed she would turn to someone else and engage in small talk. Imagine a friend who calls you up on the phone to recite a conversation he overheard between you and another person because it seemed to have good results and he wants to get the same result that they did. The two of them might hold conferences with other people who are interested in talking to you the same way…

Do these people sound like real friends? Not to me. Friendships couldn’t survive with the limited kinds of interaction we try to use with God. Relationship requires relation; put another way, it requires relating to the other party. If I wouldn’t treat a friend like a vending machine, why do I sometimes treat God that way? What if we decided to “be still and know that [He is] God?” (Psalm 46:10) What if you chose to spend time today praying and meditating on God for who He is, instead of what He can do for you? If you chose to enjoy His presence? Here is a challenge for this week: spend time speaking nothing, but saying everything to God. Sitting with Him is doing something, and it is time well-spent.

“Yes, I do.”
“Seriously? Wow, that’s a lot.”
“Hey man, I love it. I love every second of it.”
“Every Sunday, wow…”

The love and passion that I hold for my church and my relationship with God left my friend awestruck. However, love is only half of the story. While my love for God and the church is important, there is another driving factor in my walk with God: Commitment. Without both, our walk with God will not succeed. As we journey down the straight and narrow, the devil is trying to pull us off our holy path. He doesn’t particularly care which side he pulls us off of. Cold hearted commitment which lacks the energy of love is just as dangerous as passionate love with no commitment. God is desirous of a holy Bride who is both stubbornly committed and feverishly in love.

Was my statistics friend correct? Is going to church every Sunday a lot? Is that too big of a commitment? As I divulged earlier, I am a stats student. So let’s do a simple math equation. Say that your church has a two-hour service. Say that it takes you a half hour to get to church and a half hour to drive home. That brings us to a total of three hours. The average American watches four hours of TV a day. Personally, I do not watch much TV at all. However, there are plenty of things I do for three hours a day, and on Sundays, church is one of them.

Three hours a week is certainly not ridiculous, but our greatest example, Jesus, gave much more than that small fraction of his life. Jesus was “daily with you in the temple teaching.” Jesus wasn’t just a Sabbath saint. He was passionate about church. Today He is still “daily in the temple” teaching us, but are we there to hear Him? Maybe church isn’t available every day. But, when someone comes to meet God, you can count on Him being there. He is a church junky. He loves it. On the other hand, He is committed to it. I cannot remember the last church or house service where God has not blessed me. That alone is more than enough reason to both love and commit to it.

Our sacrifices are often not as demanding as we think. Our small offering of time does not compare with the price paid by many who gave their lives for His kingdom. As one preacher says, “In the day of judgment you will stand next to people whose life’s blood ran down the streets of their cities.” Commitment will lead you to do these things for God. Love will lead you to do them with Him. You must have both to be a part of the Bride fit for The King.

In my case it’s usually everyday things like washing clothes, cleaning my room, keeping my desk clean, doing school work, and playing video games. All these things distract me; I forget that I can keep my attention upon God through the repetitive aspects of the day. Also, sometimes I play more video games than I should — I have to break that cycle by putting aside my amusements and spending a little extra time with God.

You could substitute anything for games: shopping, weight lifting, cooking, cleaning, boys/girls, a job, etc. Anything that gets your attention away from God keeps your mind from being wholly given to Him. I find that in these situations it’s best to just step back and refocus. Perhaps I need to spend a little more time in prayer and praise than usual — time that I’d otherwise spend doing the mundane tasks that are always needed.

When I take the time to pray, read, and praise, I often find either that the tasks that seemed so menial don’t drain so much energy, or that I have a spring in my step as I go to do them. Prayer brings a joy that I otherwise wouldn’t have had while doing the very things I often loathed to do beforehand.

Psalms 121:1 says it this way: “I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help.” The Lord is our help. He is the one who brings us through the day. When you’re down, when you’re depleted of all energy . . . lift your eyes to Him. Put Him in His rightful place as number one and see what He will do! He is the one who brings us through all tests and trials if we keep our eyes focused on him.

Be challenged this week to do just that: put God in His rightful place in your heart (and time priorities!), and see what He will do. Share some examples of distractions you’ve overcome in the comments section and the results that have followed.