At the beginning of my faith, I struggled a lot in managing my personal worship. I grew up in a fairly large family where we had to share our rooms with five or six people, and sometimes even with our sisters. This meant that the room was always occupied in one way or another.

I started to think that personal worship for me had to be excusable because my situation was simply unavoidable. One day, I noticed after observation that there were good times to pray alone such as late at night or early in the morning in the living room, or even when everyone else was watching a movie. So, I began to program my body to wake up early. As a student, it was very difficult not to feel the pressure of class time while I prayed at 6:00 am.

Anyway, the best time was early afternoon when everyone was watching a very interesting movie on TV. What a trial! I thought to myself. They often played the genres of movies I liked, and then I realized that the time I had set aside for prayer had passed. One day while I was praying about this situation that was becoming detrimental to my faith, the Lord said to me these words:

“The world will not stop to allow you to pray, it’s up to you to stop with the world to answer the appointment of intimacy with God.”

He was right as usual because nothing around me seemed to facilitate the fulfillment of my desire to be alone with God in prayer; on the contrary, everything seemed to demand my attention.

The environment around us is a system that has no right over us, except what we give it by our own fault.

Personal discipline is mandatory for leading an effective prayer life. There is always a price to pay to develop a relationship; there is always something to give up or sacrifice to be a true disciple of Christ. Intimacy with God does not depend on your external surroundings but on your inner decision; it’s up to you to stop everything to answer the call of intimacy.

When we are hungry or thirsty, food doesn’t come to us; it’s up to us to abandon our activities to meet this inner need.

I have a question for you! Are you hungry and thirsty for the presence of God? If so, stop everything and go to quench yourself at His feet.

Jesus didn’t send away the disciples to have time to pray; rather, He withdrew from them to talk with His Father. He didn’t dismiss the crowd to pray; sometimes, He avoided them to rest and pray.

I’m not as renowned as that, but well-known enough to always have people wanting to spend some time with me; I admit I feel awkward when it’s time to find a way to tell my Christian friends and servants of God that the time for talking is over and now I must focus on the presence of God. But I realized that I easily make excuses if my wife calls me or if there’s an emergency at work; so I made God my emergency, my reason to stop everything.

So, I do my best to never schedule appointments during my personal worship time; but sometimes others plan differently, so I take the bull by the horns to protect my intimacy with God. There is a meeting that can change the rest, it is the one we have with God; so, organize your priorities well. When we go through the verses that make up Christ’s priestly prayer, we find some very striking truths. John 17: 1-12

First, God knows in what cruel world we live, and this is supposed to reassure us that our Creator is not unaware of our life context, and he cares about what we experience daily. He knows how hard and difficult it is to live on earth; He knows this because He is omniscient, and also because He lived on this earth under the same living conditions as ours.

Secondly, there is a clear difference between being in this world, being of this world, and being in Him, Christ. In this world, we are the Lord’s flock, the people who belong to Him, His church, we are a people set apart. The world around us is a system that has no right over us, except the one we give it by our own fault. We do not belong to this thought system called “world”; we are by nature strangers to the reasoning of the flesh and to the value system established by mere human wisdom. We are not among those who define things without considering the Creator, those who violate natural laws without considering the consequences; no!

Those who have the mind of Christ are not of this world; that’s why Christ recognizes our presence on this earth as the world, but also clearly affirms our belonging to another world than the one in which we live. According to our Master Jesus Christ, well! We are in Him and He is in the Father…

This text is an extract from the book “Redefine: Praise, Worship and Worship” written by Athoms Mbuma Nkanda.

We invite you to read the following article “The Heart is the Best Place for Personal Worship.”

Stop the world to pray. The world will not stop to allow you to pray, it’s up to you to stop with the world to answer the appointment of intimacy with God.