I have a 17 year old daughter who lives on the island of Guam in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. She doesn’t know it yet, but she inspired this blog post when I was chatting with her the other day on Facebook. Guam is 14 hours ahead of the US East Coast, so it was Friday night here and Saturday morning there. She told me she needed to get off of the computer for a while because she had to do her TAWG. Having never seen that acronym before, I naturally asked what it meant, and she told me, “Time Alone With God.”
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| My daughter Shadanice |
And when thou prayest,
thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are:
for they love to pray standing in the synagogues
and in the corners of the streets,
that they may be seen of men.
Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.
But thou, when thou prayest,
enter into thy closet,
and when thou hast shut thy door,
pray to thy Father which is in secret;
and thy Father which seeth in secret
shall reward thee openly.
- Matthew 6:5-6
My friends, have you had your TAWG today? The above Bible passage from Matthew 6 is in red letters in my bible. Jesus, Himself, told us to make time to be alone with God. Some people call it going into their prayer closet. It doesn’t have to be a literal closet, as some people do, which is perfectly fine, but a quiet time and place to be with God. Thank Him for His many blessings, pray for yourself and others, read the Bible, confess what you need to confess, but don’t do all the talking. Take time to listen to the Holy Spirit speaking to you. Seek His guidance, His will for you, how you can bless others, and how you can glorify Him.
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| A literal prayer closet |
Immediately Jesus made His disciples
get into the boat and go before Him
to the other side, while He sent the multitudes away.
And when He had sent the multitudes away,
He went up on the mountain by Himself to pray.
Now when evening came, He was alone there.
- Matthew 14:22-23
Not only did Jesus tell us to spend time alone with God, He set the example for us, as seen in these Bible verses from Matthew 14. Notice how Jesus is proactive here. He didn’t just wait for things to quiet down, He made the time. He sent His disciples away, and then He sent the crowd away. I want to encourage you today, my brethren, to make time for your TAWG. All of us can come up with reasons not to and give a list of stuff that is keeping us "too busy," myself included, but aren’t they really all just excuses? Sometimes we even become so caught up in ministry work that it becomes an excuse for no time ALONE with God, just like Mikes Sumondong wrote about on his blog, Your Daily Word. Can’t we find at least 20 or 30 minutes a day to make time for God every day? Turn off the TV, get off of the computer, get up a little earlier in the morning, or maybe get ready for bed a little earlier and have your TAWG then. Satan doesn’t like it when we have some TAWG, and he’ll throw anything in our way he can, but stand firm my friends, because we are more than conquerors in Christ!
