***While I’m on my blogging break, I can’t wait for you to meet my friend Lindsay Snyder. Check out Lindsay’s guest blog below. I know you will love her thoughts on spending quality time with Jesus.

 

Have you ever taken the 5 Love Languages Test? If not you should try it, it’s free! Go to www.5lovelanguages.com  and press the “click here to begin”!

Basically what the test is searching for is how YOU uniquely feel and show love!  You tend to LOVE someone the way you feel loved. I think sometimes we assume the way we “feel” loved is the way everyone “feels” loved, but according to this test, that is not necessarily true.  As for me, I am a quality time gal, I feel most loved whether it be family, friends, my future special someone when they want to spend quality time with me, this can look as simple as running errands together or just chatting on the couch, over coffee, uninterrupted just the two of us.

The reason I am writing this is not because I am an expert on love, the reason I am writing this is because last week I got suddenly distracted from my special time with Jesus (my first Love). Like some of you I am a bit of a recovering planner and I use my handy iphone calendar to keep track of commitments. About a year ago I started to put  “Date with Jesus” on my calender at least once or twice a week in an evening slot to not overbook myself and leave the most important One out.

I recently heard about this tv show everyone was loving called Downton Abbey, so last Sunday night at like 10:00pm I started to watch the first episode on Netflix, it was SO good that I continued to watch episode after episode until it was 1:30AM (WHAT?), so I woke a little later than usual on Monday, as I {TRY} to get up early and start my day with Jesus each morning! But because of my staying up late, that particular morning, I only had time for a quick scripture read and prayer and I was out the door, barley noticing Jesus was even with me (which is the point of spending time with Him-I was really just checking it off my list that day), this proceeded all week, every night I got home late, turned on Netflix and watched until the wee late hours, woke up later than usual and quickly said “Hi to Jesus and out the door I went”. Finally on Thursday I had a “Date with Jesus” on the calendar, but I found myself, glancing over facebook, zooming down my  twitter feed and texting with friends (all good and fine) but at the end of the night, I didn’t feel as though I spent much QT (quality time) with anyone, especially the One I intended too.

Here comes Friday, I had another “Date with Jesus” on my calendar, on my way home from work, I felt a nudge to turn off my phone for the evening. As I sat with my journal a few hours later writing out some prayers and thoughts to my Heavenly Father, I realized how unloved I would feel if my husband were to plan a date with me, but the entire time be checking his phone, facebooking, twittering, all while talking with me here and there but not really spending uninterrupted time with me.

I don’t have a husband yet, some of you may not either and that puts us in the perfect position to learn love from Love Himself, it just made me think do I love God the way I want to be loved?

It was liberating to turn off my phone and spend quality time with just God, my soul was refreshed, it was the best place to be, I heard recently at church that love is a choice, I think we all know that, but do we think about it when it comes to loving our Heavenly Father? He of course loves us no matter what, but we get to choose how we show Him our love.

Lindsay Morgan is a native of Ohio who moved south 7 years ago where she met Jesus head on at age 31. Ever since then, she has been fascinated by His tangible presence and real love.  Her writings usually include the grace, the struggle and the expectant heart of a moment by moment surrender to the God who created the Universe!

Visit her blog at www.PuttingthePencilDown.com