It is a cold, winter day with wind chills in the minus category. I am nice and warm at home, settled in my comfy recliner in my sanctuary meeting place with God. I’ve learned that in order to meet with God, really be present with Him, I have to relax and quiet the noise within.
Tuning In
Even in a totally quiet environment, except for the noise of occasional cars passing by, I still have a hard time turning off the clatter inside my brain and even my body and tuning into God’s frequency. It’s amazing how loud my racing heart and rapid breathing sound when I settle down and pay attention to it.
I turn off the lights, close the curtains and shut my eyes. Even then I have to put my arm over my face because even a tiny ray of sunlight streaming through a space in the curtains distracts me. I want to be totally alone with the presence of God around and within me.
I recline the chair and relax into what I know will be an amazing time in His presence if I can allow myself to be completely present with Him. Every item on my to-do list, every problem I feel only I can take care of and all the difficulties others have that I want to solve but are not mine to solve seem to tug at me like 50 2-year-olds.
Doing
These days, though, it takes less time to put these aside than in the first few days I tried this. Back then, my mind was racing from the moment I woke up until I went to bed. There was no downtime, even when I had my so-called “quiet” time. It looked more like cramming for a college final. How many chapters can I read today?
I don’t miss those times at all. As a matter of fact, I have often told God how sorry I am that I didn’t discover this practice now. I never knew how sitting in silence, meditating on Him and listening for His voice could transform my day and change everything about how I do life.
I realized some time ago I was a human doing instead of a human being. On the be-do-have continuum, I always used to start with do. I do things, in order to have things in order to be someone I can live with. Although I understood years ago that I should start with who I am, I couldn’t quite grasp how to do that.
Being
I must be who I am. Whatever I do will come out of the “be” of me and then what I have relates to that, but it must be the least important of all. We are not born having or doing; at least most of us aren’t. However, when we are born, we are probably the most in touch with God and who we are because we come directly from the comfort of His unconditional love.
“Your eyes saw me unformed, yet in Your book, all my days were written, before any of them came into being” (Ps. 139:16).
Destiny
It’s difficult for me to understand God has an individual plan for every person. That includes every person ever born throughout time and all the people alive today.
The beginning and the ending of this plan is the same. He wants to rescue us from ourselves and the evil in the world. Then, He wants to take us with Him when we pass from this life into eternity.
In between, though, is the here and now. That’s where His individual plan for each of us comes into play. “We have become His poetry, a recreated people that will fulfill the destiny he has given each of us, for we are joined to Jesus, the Anointed One. Even before we were born, God planned in advance our destiny and the good works we would do to fulfill it!” (Eph. 2:10, TPT).
Having
This encompasses the “be” of our lives. We are each different. We each have a destiny He has already planned. When we step into allowing God to define who we are, we then move to the do. That’s where we do the good works He has planned for us. The “have” flows out of us being in touch with God, carrying out our specific destiny plan and then, as recreated people we know the beauty of where we will spend eternity.
All of this is possible because of God’s extravagant grace that translated us from death to life, a life that doesn’t focus on beautiful houses, cars, the right jobs and relationships with the right people, but instead focuses on the blessings of real abundant life with Him here and now, following Him and being who He created us to be.
It is cyclical, because it brings us back to where we started—spending time with Him, turning off the stressors in our lives just long enough to connect with Him in a real way.
It’s only there we discover who we really are, a unique and extravagantly made creation of God.
Overcoming
There came a time in my life when I realized, though, that I was just existing, barely breathing. I wasn’t living out any destiny God had planned for me because I needed to have comfort foods, and lots of them, in order to do the work I thought God wanted me to do. That ended up with me being a super morbidly obese woman, which was far away from the whole, happy healthy woman I wanted to be.
God helped me turn that around, and I know He can do the same for whatever area in your life is holding you back from your destiny. {eoa}
Teresa Shields Parker is the author of seven books, all available on Amazon. Her latest book, Sweet Hunger: Developing an Appetite for God, is available now, and Sweet Grace: How I Lost 250 Pounds is the No. 1 Christian weight-loss memoir. She is also a writing and weight-loss coach, blogger, speaker, wife and mother. Visit her online at TeresaShieldsParker.com to find her books, coaching programs and free gifts.
This article originally appeared at teresashieldsparker.com.
Janet Perez Eckles 
Shawn Akers 
Abby Trivett 
