Intentionally Speaking..

So I once knew this guy whose wife wanted him to spend more time with her. His response to her was that he saw her in the morning before work. He saw her after work and during supper time, and later, he saw her when they went to bed. To him, they saw each other all the time.

He did not get it.

Sure he saw her during various times throughout his day, but only as part of the routine. She wanted more.

Now it is not that she necessarily wanted him to somehow come up with extra hours in a 24 hour day or that she wanted him to not go to work or anything of the like. What she was after was "intentional time". That is, time that was specifically set aside for, and devoted to, the two of them - a time in which his thoughts were on her specifically. Whether that meant that he decided to not go out to work in the shop after supper for a couple of hours and instead, spent that time with her, or that he would invite her to be a part of the work he was doing out there.

Kids do a similar thing all the time, especially when they are little I find. They just want to have intentional time spent with them, not just "be there" when you happen to be there. They desire to be focused upon but they also desire to focus on you as well - to be a part of something with you.

Sometimes, we as Christians can just get into the routine of things. Our morning or evening bible/prayer time can just be going through the motions. Our spending time with God becomes a time when He just happens to be there with us (which is always) rather than "intentional time".

Psalm 143:5 "..I meditate on all your works and consider what your hands have done"

When a lot of people think of the word meditate, they get a picture of some guy sitting cross legged and humming. Not quite.

Meditating on God is specifically tuning your thoughts to Him. Spending intentional time with Him rather than just going through the motions of a familiar routine. I have little doubt that He does enjoy when we spend any time at all with Him, but like a child or a spouse, I also have little doubt that He gets great delight when we intentionally focus our time, thoughts and energy on Him - which also means that we get to enjoy Him spending time with us as well (we enjoy our time spent with children or mates as well, do we not). He is always with us, but sometimes - let's be honest here - we take Him and His presence in our lives for granted a bit, so that mutual intentional time spent together...whew, it can be amazing.