Wonderful News!!! Busy. Busy! Busy!!

I've been MIA for a while, but for good reasons. On October 10, 2010 my wife gave birth to our first child, Evan. He's wonderful, and persnickety, and fills me with awe and wonder at God's design. Plus how cool is it to have a 10/10/10 birthday? I took a week off of classes to help my wife, and spend time with Evan before the seminary work load came crashing back down. It was great! The late night feedings didn't phase me and I some how managed to still function with the goofy smile of a first time Dad.

Then Monday came, and Wow! Do I have a lot of homework? I'm digging out, and trying to get caught up on a few things. One of them is journaling/blogging. I am supposed to be keeping a blog for one of my classes, and I finally got the book just before Evan was born. So for the next couple of weeks most of these devotions will deal with stuff from Enjoying the Presence of God by Jan Johnson.

I read chapter one yesterday and didn't have a chance to blog about it so we're starting with chapter 2 "Practicing the Presence of God." The goal of the book is to get to a place where the reader is in constant prayer/communication with God. The emphasis is this isn't a knowledge thing, or something we can make a to do list to cover in our quiet time. I confess I've tried that and felt really spiritually dry afterwards. In the end it just felt like one more thing I had to do. The chapter reminded me that being close to God isn't about a warm fuzzy feeling. God is with us whether we feel Him or not. He isn't up there looking down on us. God is right here sitting next to you at your computer. The trick is becoming more aware of His presence. How you ask? Prayer. Try thinking of times when you are board - like standing in line at the grocery store. Then instead of looking at the candy on display or perusing the tabloids say a little prayer for one of the other people in line. It's a terrific way of opening yourself up to what God has to say, and you might make a new friend in line.