Insightful Musings on the Scriptures

by

Raymond P. Sparre
Northwest University class of '67

Greetings, dear ones.

Another beautiful morning is staring at me. Now I need to get out there and fill it up with doing stuff—stuff to accommodate economic survival. We’ve already covered some of the stuff for psycho-spiritual survival—as is addressed below.

6 entries on my list are related to sign work—oops—7. It remains to be seen how much and how many will be crossed off by the time I hit the bed tonight. I’ll probably need to carry on this evening with a mill job I began last evening.

Be blessed as you chart your course with a desire to please Him through it all.

Love, Dad/Ray.

I sense we are touching on a very IMPORTANT principle in the life of every true child of God. Please don’t let this get by you. It has to do with seeking a daily solitary place for the purpose of communing with the Father. That priority of life motivated Jesus to avoid the natural interference and distractions of daily living and rise before others. I have learned that this is not just a nice little idea—it is essential for me in order to maintain my focus on things IMPORTANT. And I am convinced that seeking FIRST the Kingdom of God and His righteousness is IMPORTANT above all else. Two IMPORTANT Questions:

1. What part of FIRST do we typically not understand?
2. Is it not reasonable to apply this FIRST to our daily time management?

Life is full of circumstances that will prevent a retreat to an actual solitary place. In some cases, there may be none available. That’s when the earnest believer will do well to be creative toward securing the next best thing. Exactly how that private communion with the Father is achieved is not as important as that, by some means, IT IS ACHIEVED. The weight of Jesus’ example should be enough to motivate us to seek and maintain this priority. If He, the Son of God in flesh, sensed a need to be “shut in with God in a secret place,” how much more should we?