Taking baby steps has therefore become a hobby of mine over the course of my life when faced with seemingly insurmountable tasks or situations. I remember when my husband and I first got married and we came upon various challenges like moving twice in four months, looking for jobs, buying a car and other routine experiences. I would get overwhelmed as it was the first time that I was living out in the world as an adult. My husband who was five years older and more worldly used to ask me, “Juliet, how do you eat an elephant?” “I don’t eat elephant. I’m a vegetarian.” I would reply. But I knew what he was going to say. It was the same thing all the time. “One bite at a time.” And so I learned slowly how to do that.
There is a scientific explanation for this process. Over our lifetime, years and years of habitual thinking become engraved in our brain in channels known as neuropathways. As such, we tend to default to our well-practiced way of thought rather than what we may know is right. Just like in Romans 7:18-25 when Paul said, “And I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature.[a] I want to do what is right, but I can’t. 19 I want to do what is good, but I don’t. I don’t want to do what is wrong, but I do it anyway. 20 But if I do what I don’t want to do, I am not really the one doing wrong; it is sin living in me that does it.21 I have discovered this principle of life—that when I want to do what is right, I inevitably do what is wrong. 22 I love God’s law with all my heart. 23 But there is another power[b] within me that is at war with my mind. This power makes me a slave to the sin that is still within me. 24 Oh, what a miserable person I am! Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin and death? 25 Thank God! The answer is in Jesus Christ our Lord. So you see how it is: In my mind I really want to obey God’s law, but because of my sinful nature I am a slave to sin.”
However, if we begin to make a concerted effort to think differently, overtime, new neuropathways are formed and over time, we will begin to default to these new ways of thinking and then new actions. As we become more aware of God’s presence in us, and interact with Him more and more, walking in His presence will become commonplace.
A few weeks after God began to teach me about practicing His presence, I had an unusually busy day. I ended up having to do a bunch of errands, in addition to making calls for work and taking care of various family responsibilities. I had completely neglected to engage with Him all day and at the end of the day felt like something was missing. I actually felt an unexplainable loneliness. It was hard to explain, because my family was home but I felt that pang in my heart as if something was missing. It was my attention to Him that was missing and I was really missing Him. In a corny, almost silly way, it was like the Frank Sinatra song that goes, “You’re getting to be a habit with me.” It had become such a habit for me to commune with God on a very regular basis that I felt bare and lonely without Him. That was a cool revelation. I want that kind of loneliness to drive me to Him.
As believers, we do not practice God’s presence just to check it off on a list of to-do’s but instead we do it to engage with the God of the universe who adores us and who we adore and want to get to know better. So it’s a joy to just hang out with Him in this way and get to know Him better and see His miracles in our lives. And before we know it, if our motives remain pure, we’ll find ourselves continually abiding in His Spirit as He commands us to do and consistently and naturally experiencing His love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. And couldn’t we all use more of those? Now that’s the abundant life!
