Doorkeeper: Dwelling in the Presence of GodSample

“I don’t need to hurry when I’m in Your presence.” - CXMMXNS, Doorkeeper

A few weeks ago I was running late for therapy. I had an appointment set for 8:45am and then would immediately drive to a meeting at work starting at 10am. I was rushing around trying to get out the door so quickly to make it on time that I forgot the most important item of the day: my laptop.

Yep.You guessed it. Hanging on the hook back at home was my backpack keeping my shiny MacBook that was a requirement to do my job at all. So there I was - heading back home after therapy to get my laptop and then enter the meeting late. “It happens to the best of us,” my manager said and ultimately, there was no harm to being late to this meeting.

But, when we rush or hurry through things - we often miss the little things (or even the big things). We forget the meeting on that other calendar, we forget to schedule that appointment, we forget about the birthday party we were invited to, we forget to pause.

Dallas Willard, a Christian Philosopher, once said “Hurry is the great enemy of the spiritual life in our day,” and we have to whole-heartedly agree with this. In the song “Doorkeeper” by CXMMXNS, Kory Miller sings the line “I don’t need to hurry when I’m in Your presence.”

While it may be a simple line, we want to encourage you to really take that in for a moment. If we are hurrying through our normal day to day life - chances are that we are also hurrying in our time spent with Jesus. And if it’s true that we often miss things in our hurry - what if that means that we might be missing God when we rush out of His presence and check it off our lists?

Read that again.

What if we are missing God when we rush out of His presence? What if He had more to say but we were too rushed to hear Him or worse, notice at all?

Psalm 23:1-3 says, “The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing. He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, he refreshes my soul.”

We don’t have to view our time with Jesus as a chore. And we are so deeply sorry if church hurt or legalism has convinced you that it is. Instead, our time in His presence can actually be joyous, restful, and sweet. How much more desirable does that sound?

As Psalm 23 alludes to, our God is here to lead us to rest. He is here to quench our thirst for something better, something real. And He is here to give us the restoration we need - not to take that away from us.

We want to challenge you to take another moment and linger on this page a little longer. Just linger in the presence of God. Let Him know you are here listening; let Him know that you aren’t trying to hurry in His presence.

May we all wait for Him today and stay a little longer in His presence.

Amen.