I am getting ready to go on annual summer holiday. I know its getting that time of the year because it's raining and also I am beginning to feel a little weary. Do you know the feeling when you are tired, you go to bed and even if you have a good nights sleep you still wake up tired? Well I have all that going on. Don't get me wrong I love going to work, I love all the little jobs in the garden, I love all the stuff of life and yet I feel I need to take a break.

Deep down I have always thought I could be a lazy person if I was not careful. As a result I have "trained" myself to stay busy so I do not waste my life watching soaps and slobbing about! The result is that I sometimes  find it difficult to relax. So a holiday where pace is set for you and that pace is slow is ideal for me. So for the nex tweek we will be living on the good ship Maylee on the Kennett and Avon Canal.
 

 I am reading a book by John Ortberg called "The Life You've Always Wanted" It is a book about spiritual discipline. (Now let me be honest the biggest discipline I need for most Christian books is to get past chapter 3! It's not just because I get bored easily but because many books only have about 50 pages of great stuff and then the rest is just padding!) This is different. A kind of less hardcore version of celebration of discipline.

One of the things he talks about is turning aside. That is taking time out from the normal things of life to hear from God. A great example being that of Moses who turned aside when he saw a bush burning. The fact that he did not keep tending the sheep meant the whole history of a nation changed. This is how it needs to be for us, how it needs to be for me. What I am increasingly learning is that I need to make time for solitude, for turning aside, to allow God to speak to me directly.

I am aware that God speaks to me through the preached word, through meeting with other Christians, in my interactions with others. However, I have perhaps sometimes replaced this for the direct one on one time with Him. So I am now motivating myself to set time aside for God. As with all things of God the return is always greater than the investment so perhaps it's more accurate to say I am setting time aside for me? What I know it is I cannot lose! Time to stop and time to hear from the creator of the universe!