Have you ever fealt like you were scraping the bottom of the barrel when it comes to your relationship with God. Sometimes I feel this way and I don’t understand why. With all my classes I am taking at school in theology and preparing sermons and classes on Sunday, you would think it would be easy to keep spiritually charged. It’s not. When you are scraping the bottom of the barrel spiritually, you dread preparing sermons, because you dont feel like you have anyting to work from. School also becomes a drag because, if you are like me, you wonder if it is all that necessary. Sometimes I think that I just want to begin doing ministry. In addition there are all sorts of other obligations that keep you away from getting school work done the way you want.

Last night, Krista and I had to come to grips with the reality all of us find ourselves in when we are face to face with the bottom of the barrel. We decided to go out into the middle of the field across from our house. It was about 11:00 at night and the streets were quiet. The sky was clear and the starts were shining bright. We put a sheet down and layed there looking at the stars in silence. Prior to walking outside I told Krista that she was going to be in charge of our nightly devotionals. After a couple of minutes she said to me, “Tell God you are right here.” Have your prayers ever seemed so cold that you can’t even think of what to say to God? For some reason, being told what to pray helps get you going. I just layed there repeating, “God, I’m right here,” over and over again. I probably repeated that phrase in my mind a hundred times. Gradually it meant more and more. When I first started out I was saying, “I’m right here God.” As in, “I’m sorry that I have been so distant from you. I know I have been preocupied with other thing but now, I’m right here God.” Eventually I began thinking about the vastness of the outerspace I was looking at. I began thinking about how God cares for me so much that out of any place where God could be, he chose at that moment to right there with me. “God, I’m right here.” “God,I know there are wars in Iraq, I know there are children going to bed hungry tonight, I know there’s a woman whose husband has just left her and she needs you. I know there are a thousand other places and people you could be concerned with and I’m right here.” I dont know how God can place me so high up on his priority list but he does. Now, every day I am going to make time to meet him. I am going to say, “God, I’m right here,” even though I may have other things on my mind and I am sure there are more important things in this world for God to worry about. When I meet him in prayer and meditation, I can think about all the other things he could be doing but instead I hear him saying, “Josh, I’m right here.”