{"id":1645,"date":"2012-03-14T13:47:57","date_gmt":"2012-03-14T18:47:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.covchurch.org\/ekstrand\/?p=1645"},"modified":"2012-04-18T15:56:43","modified_gmt":"2012-04-18T20:56:43","slug":"wasting-time-with-god","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blogs.covchurch.org\/ekstrand\/2012\/03\/wasting-time-with-god\/","title":{"rendered":"Wasting time with God?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Do you ever feel like you&#8217;ve wasted time?  I sometimes do.  And what is &#8220;wasting time?&#8221;  For me I think it is time I spend on activities that are not productive towards checking off the items I put on my To Do list.  The things I consider time-wasters in Congo are playing Free Cell or another computer game during the day, getting up from siesta and reading several articles in a magazine or the entire magazine before I work on my life anything else I consider non-productive during the day.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/12\/2012\/03\/Benner-book-cover.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-1646\" src=\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/12\/2012\/03\/Benner-book-cover.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"175\" height=\"272\" srcset=\"http:\/\/blogs.covchurch.org\/ekstrand\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/12\/2012\/03\/Benner-book-cover.jpg 485w, http:\/\/blogs.covchurch.org\/ekstrand\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/12\/2012\/03\/Benner-book-cover-192x300.jpg 192w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 175px) 100vw, 175px\" \/><\/a>I&#8217;m reading the book THE GIFT OF BEING YOURSELF by David Benner.  In the chapter &#8220;Knowing God,&#8221; Benner writes: &#8220;What God wants is simply our presence, even if it feels like a waste of potentially productive time.  That is what friends do together-they waste time with each other.&#8221; (p. 40)<\/p>\n<p>That speaks to me in a profound way, what friends do is to <em>waste time with each other<\/em>.  I think back to courting Cindy.  How much time did we spend together just doing whatever?  Some of it was &#8216;wasted&#8217; in the sense that it we weren&#8217;t doing anything special, we were just together.  At times we knew we had homework to do or a test to study for and we just put those things aside to be together not doing anything in particular.  I think of other friends where when we&#8217;re together we can go on and on talking about many things and sharing life.  Some of the time is &#8220;productive&#8221; for  whatever ministry issues we have to discuss and other time is just being with a friend, sharing life, &#8216;wasting time&#8217; together.  So is that &#8216;wasting time&#8217;? Not really because it is deepening a relationship.<\/p>\n<p>Back to Benner&#8217;s statement: &#8220;What God wants is simply our presence.&#8221;  To help with this he suggests that &#8220;simply pondering the event [in Christ&#8217;s life]-allowing ourselves to daydream on it-is sharing Jesus&#8217; experience with him.&#8221; (p. 39)  It is entering into Jesus&#8217; experience, his feelings and passions.  Benner goes on to say, &#8220;There is no substitute for meditation on the life of Jesus if we seek to ground our God knowing in the Gospels&#8230;Gospel meditation is gazing on Christ.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>My challenge is to learn something new and to carve out or set aside the time to ponder events in Christ&#8217;s life, to waste time with God.  I do want to know Him.  Lord, help me grow in this area.  Help me learn to &#8216;waste time&#8217;<br \/>\nwith you.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-report-this\"><a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.covchurch.org\/ekstrand?moderation_action=report_form&object_type=post&object_id=1645&width=250&height=300\" class=\"thickbox\" title=\"Report This Post\">Report This Post<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Do you ever feel like you&#8217;ve wasted time? I sometimes do. And what is &#8220;wasting time?&#8221; For me I think it is time I spend on activities that are not productive towards checking off the items I put on my To Do list. The things I consider time-wasters in Congo are playing Free Cell or [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1645","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","category-reflection"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Wasting time with God? - Ekstrands in Congo<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.covchurch.org\/ekstrand\/2012\/03\/wasting-time-with-god\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Wasting time with God? - Ekstrands in Congo\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Do you ever feel like you&#8217;ve wasted time? 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