Are you slowly fleeing time with God?

Do circumstances, hurt feelings or the busyness of life drive you to God or do you let them drive you from the presence of the Lord?

God told Jonah to get up, obey Him and go to a people he didn’t like. These people were the “enemy” so why should he want to tell them to repent? They might do it and be forgiven and he wanted them punished. {Assyria’s capital Nineveh was NE of him (in present day Iraq near Mosul) so he went SW to the seaport city of Joppa to catch a boat going way west to Tarshish (most likely this was a city in what is now Spain) so he was trying to get as far from where God wanted him as possible.}

“The word of the LORD came to Jonah…Arise, go to Nineveh…,But Jonah rose up to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the LORD. So he went down to Joppa, found a ship which was going to Tarshish, paid the fare and went down into it to go with them to Tarshish from the presence of the LORD…”(Jonah 1:1-4)

Most of us don’t run from God this dramatically but instead slowly “flee from His presence”. We quit reading our Bible regularly and then perhaps almost never. We go from praying all the time to maybe on Sunday, to maybe at a meal with a group, and then to only when some big trouble comes and we want some “extra” help.

We start skipping a chance to gather with our local fellowship of believers and end up seldom if ever going to church services. Normally this is a slow process as ‘church’ and the things of God become something we do rather than who we are and a time of closeness with God and His people. We get busy and begin to neglect Him and to love other things more than being in God’s presence. (Yes I know God is everywhere and we can never escape His being there, but by presence here I’m referring to that closeness and fellowship that we may need to restore.1Jn 1:9)

Sadly for too many it is a short trip for them because they never had a close time of prayer, Bible study and involvement in the lives of other discipling and teaching them. Being a Christ follower is about a relationship of love and fellowship with God that also involves others in whom God dwells – fellow believers. That love also spills over into other’s lives too as you share your relationship with God with others; and He uses you to bring others to know Him and be used to train them to walk with God and to become disciple makers themselves.

When a love relationship loses the excitement one or both people are not working at it. Since we know God is always there doing His part, then it must be ME who needs to see where I have left His presence. If you are not as close to God as you want to be, then turn around and go where He wants you to be – in His presence, His will, His grace. For a time cut back or put away FB, roping or whatever it is that is becoming your “First Love” and put your eyes back on Jesus. It is many times good things that pile up on us and keep us from time alone with God, loving Him and acknowledging Him being first in our life; being our life.

Don’t let your dislike of something as in Jonah’s case drive you from God. Don’t let your liking of something too much keep you from time in God’s presence and missing out on Him using you to help change other’s lives.

Don’t let “life” drive you from the presence of the One who is your life, instead spend time in God’s presence and allow Him to restore the joy of that fellowship in your life!