Breakfast with Jesus

I have heard my husband use this phrase referring to the time in the morning when one has their quiet time or their devotions.  It sounds a bit funny to me but after yesterday morning, I’m thinking it’s an appropriate descriptor. 

Yesterday a friend and I enjoyed a leisurely breakfast outside with a view of a small lake.  The scenery was delightful.  The time with my friend was wonderful.  We talked and caught up.  We spent some time reading Psalm 1 together.  We prayed together.  Ahhhh, the gift of fellowship.  Our time flew by.

Just as I loved breakfast with my friend yesterday, I also love the time I spend in the mornings having “breakfast with Jesus”.  But it hasn’t always been that way.

I can’t remember a time that I did not believe in God.  But for many years, God and Christianity defined my religion ~ I was a Christian.  It was a piece of my life that was usually confined to Sundays.  During my college years my religion morphed into a relationship with God or a friendship with God.  This new relationship now defined who I was.  And with the new relationship came new activities … like having a quiet time. 

And for a long time that’s what my quiet time was ~ an activity that I added to my schedule.  It was a task.  It could be checked off the list.  It was a seed.  It usually included reading somewhere in my Bible and spending some time praying.  It was rather mechanical.  If you asked me later in the day what that time had meant to me, I would have been hard-pressed to give an answer.  My motivation was I’m a Christian, I should do this. 

But I’m learning that “shoulds” are not a very good motivation for anything!  I’m thankful that my motivation has changed to I desire to have a quiet time and enjoy breakfast with Jesus.  My quiet time is no longer that activity or that task that I added to my morning, it has become time with a special friend.  It is a joy for me that I look forward to.  The seed that I was planting in those early years has bloomed into a special part of my day.  Although the basic activities of my quiet time have changed little, it is no longer mechanical, it is organic.  I am meeting with the God who is alive and active in every part of my life. 

The transformation of this time centers on the word trust. 

• I learned to trust my identity as the beloved child of the Father. That was the starting point of the transformation of my quiet time. For me, trusting was reviewing the scriptures that spoke of my identity as a primary focus of my quiet time. 
• As I learned to trust what God said about me, the Holy Spirit began to reveal to me what I was believing about myself.  That led to replacing those beliefs with the truths of scripture and learning to trust what God said about me instead of my insecure thoughts. 
• I’m learning to ask this question as part of my quiet times, “God, what would it look like for me to trust you today?”  Often, the answer to that prayer comes to me immediately.  Other times not.  But either way, trusting the God who loves me is transforming my quiet time from the mechanical to the organic, from the “should” to the desire of my heart

I loved Heather’s words in her blog June 2.  It will take you about one minute to read it.

http://www.livewithflair.blogspot.com/

“And without faith (trust) it is impossible to please God.”

Hebrews 11:6