Word Filled Wednesday

^{Philippians 4:4-9}

⁴ Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! ⁵ Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. ⁶ Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. ⁷ And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

⁸ Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. ⁹ Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you.

Do you ever feel like your situation is just too much? Like you just can’t seem to get ahead, things continue to overwhelm you because you can’t catch your breath? I know in our household it seems to be like that quite a bit. It’s just one thing after another. This is especially so since the economy has continued to weaken. However, I think one thing that helps us as a Christian family is to have the Lord in our lives. We may get discouraged, moody, depressed, worried etc. but it passes quickly. It is not a constant state of being for us.

There have been times in my life where I feel swallowed up by depression due to our circumstances; it is at those times that I find myself needing to turn to the Lord even more than normal. I often seek his wisdom from his Word, the Bible. In addition, I seek his relationship in the silence of prayer. Then at other times, I need to remind myself he calls us to REJOICE. I then realize, I need to spend some time praising HIM. I do this often in Song. I put in a cd with music, pull up my Blog or turn to YouTube for help. I find that it is when I am praising him that my heart renews that my troubles don’t seem so heavy and that I have peace that the Lord promises.

I think prayer, praise and quiet time are things that are noble, true, right and pure. They are admirable because we are seeking to further our relationship with Christ. We spend so much money and time and effort on the relationships that are close in our lives, our husbands, wives, children, parents but often we forget the single most important one- Our Lord.

How do you spend time with Him to deepen your relationship?