2020-07-08 Coffee with Chris - How to just be with God

The speaker, Chris, is excited about his upcoming wedding and emphasizes the importance of learning about and experiencing life with his partner. He then relates this idea to one's relationship with God, suggesting that we can also find joy and deepen our connection with God by learning about Him and sharing experiences with Him. Chris encourages listeners to spend time alone with God, away from distractions, and suggests finding a comfortable place where they can focus solely on God. He advises turning off phones and using a physical Bible and notepad to avoid distractions. Chris concludes by offering assistance to those who need a physical Bible and encourages listeners to take a half-hour or an hour to be with God. Well, good morning and welcome to Coffee with Chris. You know, Hannah and I, as you guys know, are getting married very soon and we're very excited for the wedding and more importantly, the marriage. We've been talking lately about the things that we enjoy doing together and, you know, we have discovered that we gain the most joy in our relationship by learning more and more about each other and experiencing life together. And you know, like some of our favorite things are taking a walk and talking or having some tea and talking, walking, watching a show and then talking about it, giving our thoughts. And we're always talking to each other about what our thoughts were about an experience we went through or talking about memories about something that happened and, you know, how each our interpretation of each other's reactions to those things were and everything. And I was thinking about this in the context of our relationship with God, you know. I think we gain the most relationship in our joy and our experience with God by doing the same thing, learning more about each other and going through experiences with each other. You know, God already knows everything about us, of course, but for us to learn about God and share experiences with God, right? Again, obviously, he's ever-present, but to be active and conscious in experiencing things with him. So how do we be with God? How do we just be with God? Well, first of all, prayer, you know, one thing I don't know how many people know this in the modern era, but if you study any classical English literature, you'll learn very quickly that pray is not an exclusively spiritual word, but just a simple old English word, which means to make a request or to ask, you know, I pray thee. What hour is it, good gentlemen? You know, saying, I'm asking you, what time is it? Right? So when we're praying, we're asking, that's one part of it, but when we use the word prayer in the spiritual sense, we're talking about more than just asking, but talking and listening, right? That's the interesting thing is that Hannah and I don't just talk, right? We've listened to one another. It's not just that we get to talk that makes the experience so nice for us, listening to one another, right? Otherwise, right now, simply talking to this camera would be just as, you know, a nice experience as having that conversation with Hannah, but it's not because I get to listen to her and learn more about her, so that's so much more special, you know? So here's my challenge to you this week. For a lot of you, this might seem simple, and maybe you do this kind of thing all the time, but maybe you don't, and maybe you have done it many times in the past, but you've kind of like moved off of that, and you want to kind of bring yourself back to this. Here's my challenge to you. Find a place this week to be alone with God, and you think, well, God is with me everywhere. He's with me when I'm driving in the car, He's with me when I'm, yes, but your mind is also divided. If you're in the car, I like praying in the car too, but I'm talking about something in addition to this, because when you're in the car, your mind should also be on the road, and so your mind is divided. You're not focused solely on God, and if you were, you might get out of the car accident, so that's not the best scenario that I'm talking about, but find a place that you are comfortable and not distracted. For me, being indoors, or essentially in my own home, is very distracting for me, because I'm looking at all these things that maybe belong to me, remind me of myself rather than of God, and those things should remind me of the blessing of God, but you get what I'm saying, or how that thing over there needs tidying up, or this thing needs tidying up, or that book over there, he has a meaning to read that. So, for me, it's going out in nature, for you, it might be different, it might be your basement, it might be your attic, it might be your grandma's house, it might be going down by the ocean, whatever it is, find a place where you can be void of those distractions. Turn off your phone, you don't need your phone during this time, centuries, in fact millennia of human history has gone by where we have not needed our phone, and we've gotten through and somehow survived. So, turn your phone off, people can wait an hour, half an hour, for you to do this, because God is more important. And grab your physical Bible and a notepad, so you're not tempted to have those distractions on your phone. I love taking notes on my phone, and I love reading my Bible on my phone, I can switch between translations, but what I'm asking you here is just that organic experience. If you don't have a physical Bible, switch your phone on to airplane mode, that's the mode you switch on when you go on an airplane, it blocks all your notifications and texts from coming in, or the Wi-Fi, or data, or cellular activity, but you can still read your Bible app, and that sort of thing, or take notes. If you'd like a physical Bible, and you live in the area of Highway Christian Fellowship, you know, Sydney, North Spanish, and you can't get your hands on a physical Bible, reach out to me at chris, the H-R-I-S, at hcfsydney.ca, and I'll connect with you. But take a moment, take half an hour, or an hour, this week, to just be with God. I'm rooting for you. God bless.