Justin Tucker, LHBC Worship Pastor
Psalm 107:9
For He has satisfied the thirsty soul,
And the hungry soul He has filled with what is good.
If you’ve got kids, you’ve probably had to deal with an “accident” because your child was so busy playing that they didn’t want to stop playing? How about you? Have you ever gotten so busy that you forgot to take care of yourself? Have you forgotten to eat a meal, or you got so busy that you short changed your sleep schedule? Have you had a season with your spouse where you just feel like ships passing? Have you allowed the busyness of life to affect the time of personal worship and prayer that you should have spent with the Lord? I think at some point we all have. I know I have.
When I was 25 and still working for UPS I had a really bad heat stroke. It was a hot summer night, in a building that is basically a concrete box, and I was short staffed. I was responsible for the processing of about 32,000 packages in a 4 hour time span. On a normal night I would have had 8-9 sorters, on this night I only had 5. I slung packages as hard as I could for as long as I could and even tried to catch up during break. I wasn’t doing a wrong thing or a bad thing but I wasn’t putting in what I needed to sustain me. I wasn’t drinking enough water to replenish my body and keep it from shutting down. Luckily, I made it through the shift without collapsing. After it was over though, I collapsed. I couldn’t keep water down. The one thing that I needed to survive, my body had begun to reject. I ended up spending a day in the hospital with a couple of iv’s in me just trying to rehydrate.
As Christ followers it is our personal responsibility to maintain and care for ourselves physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. When we get busy in life it’s so easy to miss or ignore all of the signs around us telling us to “Be still and know” Psalm 46:10 or “Come to me all who are carrying burdens and I will give you rest.” We rush out the door in the mornings, trying to get kids to school or daycare, so we can get to work and neglect the spiritual sustenance that we so need. There’s a reason that Jesus called himself the bread of life in John 6:35 and a reason he offers living water to the woman at the well in John chapter 4. It’s because he wants to commune with you in such an intimate way. The only way we can do that is to spend time in His presence and spend time in His Word. Those are the things that will sustain you.
So let me encourage you today to slow down. Create time and space for you and God to commune with each other. Put into yourself the Bread of Life and Living Water.
PRAYER FOR TODAY:
Father, help me to slow down. Remind me to hit pause on the busyness of life and to create space and time in my schedule to spend time in Your presence. Lord, you are my creator and my sustainer, never let me forget that. Put in me a hunger for your bread and a thirst for living water. Thank you for Your son and the sacrifice that He made so that we could have access to You. It is in the great, big name of Jesus that I pray, amen.
MEMORY VERSE FOR THE WEEK:
Ephesians 2:8-9:
8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast.