We don't always remember to, but life can be tough and we all need to watch ourselves closely and recognize when we should take time off to spend it with the Lord.
This is a very important thing for all who are God's children in Christ.
Just like any young child who depends on his parents for instruction, provision, protection and direction, we all need to depend on God for everything we'll ever need or want in this life and beyond.
We need to have the attitude of David when he said in Psalm 63:1,
"O God, You are my God; Early will I seek You; My soul thirsts for You; My flesh longs for You in a dry and thirsty land where there is no water."
Some of us, however, aren't like that.
We tend to just keep going forward in ministry without taking time off for prayer and fasting. We tend to spend much time in Bible study group or in discipleship group but we don't really spend time alone with God to seek Him and know Him.
It's about time we do that.
Signs you need time alone with God
Some of us might not realize that we need to spend time alone with God. It's because we don't know just how our lack of good quality alone time with Him does.
For starters, those who don't spend time alone with God to pray and read the Word end up drifting back into the flesh. Why is this?
It's because we can't expect to neglect spiritual nourishment and still be strong against the flesh.
"I say then: Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish." (Galatians 5:16-17)
And so, dear friends, we must realize that if we truly want to be strong in the Spirit against the flesh, we've got to spend significant amounts of quality time with God in prayer, fasting, and Bible reading.
Here are a few signs that will tell us if we need to deliberately take time off from everything we can to give it to God:
1) We have no prayer life
When we don't spend time for prayer, that's a very obvious sign that we all need to take time off to pray. That's pretty simple to understand, right?
We will do well to evaluate ourselves honestly. When was the last time we spent time with God only to pray to Him?
2) We don't read our Bibles
The second sign is also an obvious one: when we don't read our Bibles anymore.
Many of us have Bible apps in our smartphones, but these apps aren't used. Even more have physical Bibles at home, but these Bibles are dusty or are stuck under a pile of other things we deem more important.
When was the last time we opened our Bibles to seek God?
3) We compensate for our feeling of fulfillment with other things
Here's a subtle one. When we find ourselves spending more time on entertainment and other things we find enjoyable like chatting with friends, playing videogames, going out to take a walk almost all the time, then we've got to ask ourselves:
Why are we doing that?
We need to check if we're doing all these things because we feel empty or purposeless. God is the one who can satisfy and fill us up, but unless we realize that our emptiness comes from a lack of communion with Him, we'll likely try to satisfy ourselves with things that aren't really satisfying.
