As usual, every year I try to keep a daily spiritual journal and as such I also every year take one month out to look over past entries.

Of course, it’s far later this year, because to be quite honest I’ve been flat out. (You may have noticed far fewer articles published this year.) But I feel that this ‘every day with God’ series is so important to encourage people to see what can come out of just spending time with God with a Bible open. Moreover, I get so frustrated by how easy these truths are to forget and thus the summarising and recording of them is an important self discipleship process.

Some things are theological insights, some are personal insights and some are just cries from the heart. So without further ado:

(The below came about reflecting daily on the life of Moses and Israel’s journey with God through the desert.)

• It is a constant fight to focus on the detail of salvation than on the details of the situation.
• To pray without ceasing, incorporate the thing that draws the gaze away from God into the conversation with God.
• You can’t accept both God’s help and then the glory for it.
• Humility is the fertilizer that allows love to flourish.
• When I reach the end of myself, I reach for your provision Lord.
• Whatever it is, it’s not a surprise to God.
• The plague of darkness is really and effectively the plague of loneliness.
• Judgment always results in a revelation of the truth.
• Life is seemingly an endless quest for rest because it is really an endless quest for God.
• Let God look after the reputation.
• When I’m tired I’m distracted. When I’m distracted I’m distant. When I’m distant I end up more exhausted. When exhausted, mistakes are made. In the presence of mistakes, I resort to self-defense.
• What is the battle that just isn’t worth it at the moment? It’s probably why you’re more tired than makes sense.
• When we seek to advertise God more than glorify God, heresy is just around the corner.
• Just because God moves among you, doesn’t mean he’s moving through you.
• I’ve lost count of how many times the greatest gifts of spiritual insight have followed the toughest days spiritually.
• God commands more than readiness, he commands urgency. (Ex 12:11)
• Satan fills life with fake urgency to distract us from the real urgency.
• Though footholds in our memory, God ‘builds in’ tot he future with all its trials, reminders of his past faithfulness and presence that will sustain us when we get there.
• Evil always cite’s God’s enormous patience as the primary evidence for his apparent non-existence.
• Even the night upon which Jesus was buried in a tomb, was made by the Lord.
• how many times have I missed a sign or miracle because I was not waiting in his presence?
• As the stone is cut to chisel the law into the tablet, it is silly to assume that the writing of God’s law on to a heart will not at some point make it bleed. (Jer 31:31-34)
• A compromise with sin in one area has the knock-on effect of re-igniting a struggle in another.
• The bible is not a tool for understanding God and trusting ourselves, but for understanding ourselves that we may finally trust God.
• Commands sound more unreasonable the more the flesh gets used to getting its own way all the time without question.
• An attitude of reverence is the antidote to distraction.
• A well-developed theology of worship is the key to guarding against the twin evils of hyper-conservatism on one hand and turning churches into businesses on the other.
• Just worship until you worship.
• If Satan can’t wreck faith, he’ll simply turn it into a tool.
• The foundation of a right relationship with God is knowing and loving that he doesn’t share glory.
• Application is the space where theology impinges on the flesh.
• God sends his daily bread yet none say “ahh yes, the bread that was clearly promised” but rather “what is it?” Are we any different today?
• Arrogance bears fruit: ignorance. That’s why it’s possible to stave to death surrounded by the bread of heaven.
• To live by faith is to live by discernment is to live by praise.
• What if God sends/allows situations that do not have a 5-minute solution because he wants me to learn peace amidst ambiguity?
• Forgetting how to Sabbath, preceeds forgetting how to pray.
• The world clamors for my attention, yet God simply sits and waits for mine.
• Like manna, memories of God’s faithfulness must be preserved.
• The doctrine of total depravity could also be called the doctrine of total ignorance.
• How easy it is to reject encouragement in order to hold on to excuses.
• You will only pray to the Lord of the harvest for more workers when you stop overestimating your own ability.
• Rarely do we every pray: “Lord increase our love.”
• God often intervenes through inconvenient questions.
• It is a sin to live an unsustainably busy life.
• The core desire of the God of the universe is to treasure even a single person.
• The authority of God that levels mountains begins in whispers of the Spirit.
• Temporary relief through distraction gives way to an ultimately fractured soul.
• We do not need to strive for balance. Rubbish! We need to simply be consumed by love for God.
• The rest of God is found in the holiness of God.
• Because of what Jesus did, I may know agony but never despair.
• You cannot steal and depend on God’s provision at the same time.
• It’s easier to rearrange ‘household gods’ rather than get rid of them.
• Do not fear to fear God. It has a purpose and contains a promise.
• It is only against the backdrop of God’s awesomeness can the gravity of his grace be truly understood.
• altars populate the pages of scripture because God knew individuals needed physical reminders of his prior faithfulness.
• We cannot build altars and idols at the same time.
• No one discovers the depths of God’s generosity who is stingy towards him.
• Even in the wilderness the presence of God can be sought and seen.
• God always has a perfectly good reason for every delay we experience.
• God set’s the boundaries and no one else for only God knows our capacity.
• We are only one single revelation away from complete life change.
• Revelation is promised to those who respond.
• As Moses remained on the mountain, so did God.
• It is not healthy to delay rest for the sake of that which is out of our control anyway.
• I confess that my prayer chair is so often my place of duty while my couch is my place of delight. Lord, please change this.
• God does not pour responsibility into the hands of the careless. At least, not for long.
• God is aware that endless activity renders one unable to contemplate his glory.
• On the 7th Day, God is contemplating creation itself. ie: His glory displayed.
• Priesthood is revealed when push comes to shove.
• I find myself often spiritually schizophrenic. Longing for intimacy with God only to run one I experience it, freaked out by out beyond my control it is.
• Old life=destruction. Thus the new life=a new name. The old life with its old name will be erased.
• God is fine for Moses to ‘leave the camp’ in order to commune with God.
• It’s easy to pray ‘Lord your will be done’ and then lead a life specifically avoiding that will.
• I know I’m not going to make it without a vibrant relationship with God, but praise him that I’m coming to a place where I don’t want to make it without God.
• Without a relationship with Jesus, you can only confront people with doctrine but never present Christ in his fullness.
• In our drive for application, most preaching about idols is about what they’ll do to our lives, but the Bible isn’t about us, it’s about God. Look what they did to Jesus’ life.
• We complain about not having the time to meet with God, then fill every unexpected silence with noise.
• We struggle to sit still because we live in a culture whose entire economic system rests on denying the Sabbath.
• Perhaps ‘goal setting’ can simply be a righteous-sounding excuse for relentless busyness.
• The rhythms that we maintain in crisis are crucial because we don’t tend to just fall into good habits when time permits.
• You can’t speak face to face with God without being changed.
• Reading scripture for the sake of the gospel reveals more and more of the gospel.
• What if ambiguity is a gift inviting us to repent and return to the provision of God?
• It’s strange how a lack of prayer so often co-incides with impatience at God’s timing.
• It is need that drives me to look again for the ‘pillar of fire’ in my life that I forgot was there in my journey.

Part 2 coming soon:)