I had a wonderful time of conversation and prayer with one of my mentors recently. She is a prayer warrior and I firmly believe that devotion to prayer is one of the many things I am to learn from her. Through intercessory prayer, God reveals a person’s true passion, intense focus, and even their sincere love for you. I’m only recently coming to a place where I pray with a few select people regularly. I am realizing as a wife, mother, and leader that intercessory prayer is something I don’t have time NOT to do, so I’m limiting other distractions to create space for this priority. This special time of prayer clearly revealed the need to narrow my focus – establish more boundaries and be firm in my priorities.
During our conversation, I shared a point of excitement and she began to get excited as well, then she backed off. “What was this sense of caution,” I thought to myself. Then these wise words escaped her lips, “I can’t afford to get excited about anything else right now. I need to focus on these two specific things that God has told me to do.” Wow! How often do we take action and move forward with many good things, but this same woman told me a couple years ago not to trade in God’s BEST thing for that which is good. I am so thankful that God has placed people in my life to protect me in prayer, cover me with love, and grow me up in wisdom, knowledge, and understanding.
These past few weeks have been quite busy for our family. We spent a weekend in South Carolina visiting my cousin who returned to rest from the war in Afghanistan. I spent a week in Charlotte attending a leadership course for school. My daughter and I went to the Washington DC area for a week. She connected with old friends while I attended a conference and went to work. I went to school again and then spent a day in Raleigh helping my best friend from college plan her wedding. Those experiences were significant investments of quality time in my relationships – God, family, and friends.
Sometimes we have to take extra care to invest in people and not just to complete tasks. (These massive amounts of snow can actually be God’s opportunity for you to reconnect with family or reach out to your neighbors.) In all things, we should be discerning about what God is calling us to do on any particular day. Once God makes that focus clear, we should get excited about his revelation and focus our attention on whatever he has revealed. Being intentional about the things God would have us to do now often requires us to eliminate other distractions (some of them maybe quite good) so that we can focus and prepare for the sure thing that God has called us to in this season of life. Therefore, I’m praying for God’s direction daily and trimming the fat from my life to intentionally prepare for the work that God has for me.
How about you? Have you trimmed any fat lately?
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© Natasha L. Robinson 2011
A SISTA'S JOURNEY 
Well said and thank you for being so transparent! I look forward to reading your next submission.
Thanks for reading and sharing, Kat. Praying for you. Drop me an email when you get a chance. Love, Natasha
So close to home. If only my body and mind had the same capacity as my heart. I’ve been asking the Lord to show me His priorities since I can’t seem to trim them down for myself. Thanks, Tasha!
Tasha,
This was an excellent entry. It was written very well & it has me reflecting about my own life. Keep up the great work sis. Love ya…peaches
Glad to encourage, Peaches. God bless you