Alone

I love to be with people.  And then I love to be alone.  I have always felt the need for a lot of “alone time.”  I love to take long bubble baths with my books or stay up late past the time when everyone else in bed.  I veg.  I think.  I ignore things.  I talk to myself.  I do what I want to do.  I refresh. 

This past weekend, I attended a Ladies God Encounter at my church.  What is the benefit of getting away from home for two days and listening to various sermons?   It wasn’t the sermons so much as the time alone –- with God.  At home, I get so distracted by all the things around me:  never-ending chores, like dishes and laundry; always-changing, but ever-present projects, like getting ready for Missionettes class or sewing a dress; and ever-calling entertainment sources like TV, video, Ipad games, and books.

Instead, for two days, I focused on my relationship with God and how that was going.  There was no TV and no book but the Bible.  I repented.  I worshipped.  I waited on Him.  I came in tired in spirit and left renewed.  On the first evening, a verse was read that hit me like a ton of bricks:

Psalm 139:17-18

How precious also are Your thoughts to me, O God!
         How great is the sum of them!
If I should count them, they would be more in number than the sand;
         When I awake, I am still with You.

How often have I spent my “alone time,” trying to be truly alone?  I try not to think about anyone else.  But, God never stops thinking about me.  I live in Florida, so I know what sand looks like.  The number of grains of sand is uncountable and incomprehensible.  Therefore, God thinks about me all the time.  He never takes a break from me.  I am humbled and determined to stop taking breaks from Him.  To help, this week I am fasting TV.  Yesterday, Satan tried to attack me in various ways to get me thinking all about me again.  I was hard-pressed, but not crushed:

2 Corinthians 4:8-11

We are hard-pressed on every side, yet not crushed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed— always carrying about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body.  For we who live are always delivered to death for Jesus’ sake, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh.

In each situation that arose, I “pray[ed] without ceasing” and I requested help to “rejoice evermore” (1 Thessalonians 5:16-17).  The situations did not change, but my heart was changed.  I was thinking about God, and He was thinking about me. 

Hebrews 13:5b

He Himself has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.”