How to Make Room for God When Life is Busy

Do you ever wonder if you're spending enough time with God? Do you question how to spend more time with God, even if you want to, when you have the responsibilities and demands of everyday life that seem endless and constantly overwhelming? If so, today's video is for you because I'm going to be providing you with seven simple and practical ways to make space for God in your life, no matter how busy you are. Stay tuned!

At Beloved Women, we fully stand by the statement that a full life cannot run on an empty soul. And what we mean by that is although we understand life is busy and that there are demands and responsibilities calling at you from multiple areas of your life, it's also true that we can not intentionally and purposefully meet those demands of our lives, if we're not feeding our souls by connecting with God. 

Our spiritual life very much has an impact on our physical and mental lives. So regardless of whether we're busy or not, if we don't make time to refresh our souls with the presence of God, we won't have the time or the energy or strength to really serve in the physical and mental aspects of our lives.

So the question then is, well, how can we live in these two spaces?

How can we actually make time for God when life is already busy? That's what we're going to talk to you about today: how to make room for God in your life by giving you seven ways to make your heart a home for Christ. 

I have a best friend whose name is Shade and she is one of the most hospitable people that I know. We were just talking the other day about how hospitality is without question one of her spiritual gifts and she was even recently asked by her church to lead the hospitality department. 

And I know exactly why they asked her because Shade is so kind, giving, and welcoming. If you ever come to her home, you will notice her decorations and how she sets up her furniture and the pictures on the walls, and everything is so warm, cozy and inviting. She creates an atmosphere where you just want to come in, sit down and talk to her because she's so hospitable.

That is exactly what I hope today's video will help us to do with our lives spiritually, to cultivate hearts that invite Christ in, so that regardless if we're busy or not, our hearts are always open to Him. He wants to speak to us in that season, wherever we are. When we develop hearts that are welcome homes for Christ, we can then ensure that we always make room for God in our lives.

So, today I’m giving you seven ways we can make our hearts a home for Jesus.

EXPECT HIM

Number one: expect Him. The first way that we can make our hearts a home for Christ is to expect Him. Revelation 3:20 says 

“Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come into him and eat with him and he with me.” (Revelation 3:20 ESV)

What we're seeing here is that God wants to be in relationship with us. He has taken the first step and He's knocked on the door of our heart. So we don't need to expect God to turn His back on us because He's mad. We don't need to expect Him to put his nose up to us because we made a mistake yesterday. We need to expect God to want to be in our lives so that we can receive Him as such.

We must believe that Jesus wants to be a part of our lives because we can't truly open our lives up to Jesus, if we don't realize and expect that He desperately wants to be a part of our lives

INVITE HIM

Number two: invite Him. The second way that we make our hearts a home for Christ is we open the door.

Jesus is knocking. We know that He actually wants to be a part of our lives now. But we have to invite him in. Jesus said that He will knock at the door of your heart, but He will not knock the door down. You have to let Him in. Now here's the thing. Many of us may get that feeling like, oh wait, my heart's not clean enough. 

Have you ever had an unexpected guest come to your house and you experience this rush of anxiety because your house is a mess?

You're worried that you're going to be judged, so you really don't want to invite your unexpected guest in. You may even pretend like you're not at home because you don't want them to see your mess.

But here's the thing about Jesus. We don't have to clean up our mess before we open the door. He's not going to peek His head in and be like, “oh no, this is too messy. She got too much drama. She got too much unforgiveness. She got too much bitterness in her heart. I'm not going in there.” No. Jesus came to and He’s knocking at the door of your heart to help you clean up.

As much of a hospitable host as you can be for Christ, He is even more of a better guest. He's the best guest to invite to the home of your heart. Romans 5:8 says:

“But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8 ESV)

What that means is God didn't wait for us to get our lives perfect before he knocked on the door of our heart. He knows what's behind that door. He knows what's in your heart. And He decided that He wanted to knock anyway. Still, we have to choose to let Him in and not allow our insecurities and fears get in the way of us receiving the best gift that God has to offer us. 

TALK TO HIM 

Number three: talk to Him. The third way that we can make our heart a home for Christ is to talk to Him. How do we talk to God? We talk about this all the time on this channel. We talk to God through prayer. 

Prayer is simply how we commune and communicate with our God and it is such a privilege. The beautiful thing is that we can pray about anything anywhere because our God is Omnipresent and He can meet us wherever we are.

When you invite someone into your home, you don't want to be anti-social and go up to your room and take a nap, leaving them just sitting in the living room. No, you sit with them and you talk with them. Now, the beautiful thing about talking with God, like I said before, is that we can talk to Him about anything. 

A good host always knows how to start up a conversation with their guests. Why? So that your guests can know you more. The purpose of talking with your guests is so that you can engage with them and get to know them. This is the same reason we pray and talk to God, not only to list off our wants and needs, but to develop an intimate relationship with Him.

If you want to get some great examples of prayers, then look no further than the book of Psalms. There are so many beautiful prayers in that book that can act as conversation starters for you and your guest, Jesus Christ. 

DINE WITH HIM 

The fourth way to make your heart a home for Jesus is to dine with Him. I don't like to invite people over to my house without food, because I just assume that people are always hungry, and a good hostess never wants her guests to be hungry. Now the host doesn’t always have to cook a big meal. You can cater, order in, or provide light snacks, just as long as your guests have something to eat to satisfy any hunger they may have. 

As we invite Jesus into our hearts, we have the beautiful opportunity to dine with Him. How do we actually practically dine with God? We study his Word. Jesus tells us:

“But he answered, “It is written, “‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God." (Matthew 4:4 ESV)

Now this goes in part with point three, because prayer is our conversation with God, right? But when we dine with God, when we study His Word, that is His conversation back to us. It’s Him speaking His word over our lives and filling us up with His truth. 

Have you ever had a bad day and things just were not going right? And you just got a word from God and it changed everything. Like you saw a scripture that just really spoke to you, or you heard a sermon that really touched your heart. And it was a word that you know, was from God. And it just changed everything. That is what dining with Christ will do.

That's what happens when we open our Bibles. We open it, and open our heart even more to hear from God. And let me tell you something. It's life changing. 

ENJOY HIM 

The fifth way that we can make our hearts a home for Christ and make room for God in our busy lives is to enjoy Him. We do this by worshiping Him and taking time to focus our minds on the goodness of God.

Listen, do not make God an item on your to-do list. Don't make dining with Him and talking with Him just another thing to check off of your to-do list, so you can feel good about yourself. God is greater than any to- do list who deserves our worship and adoration and time spent where we just think about how good He is. So compliment God and tell Him how good He is to you and why you love Him. This will open up your heart and make it an inviting home for Christ, our Lord and Savior. 

PRIORITIZE/ HONOR HIM

The sixth way that we can make our heart a home for Christ is to prioritize Him, meaning making sure that He is the guest of honor in the home of our hearts. Let's chat a bit about Mary and Martha to learn how to do this.

Jesus came to their home and they're both excited to see Him, but they both made different decisions on how they would host Him. Martha decided to make sure that she was cooking and cleaning because Jesus wasn't the only guest that was coming, and there were many preparations to be made. But Mary, on the other hand, decided to sit at the feet of Jesus and listen to Him teach. Martha gets frustrated because she's like, “hold up, I need Mary to come and help me.” Then she becomes frustrated that Jesus is just letting Mary sit there and tells Him to tell Mary to help.

At this point, Martha is going for everyone, Mary and yes even our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Martha was flustered because she has so much going on. She's so overwhelmed and there were legitimate logistics and things that needed to be addressed. Does that sound familiar? Let’s listen to how Jesus responds to Martha. 

“But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her.” (Luke 10:41-42 ESV)

I love how Jesus doesn't condemn Martha for being busy and cooking and taking care of the household. But Jesus gently reminds Martha not to worry about many things when only one is necessary or better.

Mary at Jesus’ feet intently listening to Him and enjoying His presence teaches us how to prioritize God, put Him first, and make Him the guest of honor in our hearts.

So how can we not become so distracted by all the real life responsibilities that we have that we can't just ignore? What we have to realize, like Mary realized, is that we can't be anxious about what needs to be done.

We have to release it to God. When we put God first, when we say I'm going to wake up early and spend time with God, we're putting our faith in Him by believing the time and presence that we offer Him God will bless. We trust that whatever we can’t do during that time and whatever responsibility we can't meet because we’re with God, God will take care of it or He will give us the strength to do it at a later time. We have to realize that God is the God of time. He created time.

We don't have to be so stressed about how and when we're going to get everything done. We can’t be an attentive host with this type of worry and anxiety in our hearts.

We need to have time and margin in our lives where we say, “I'm not going to do anything, but be with God.”  It doesn't have to be six hours. It could be 15 minutes. It could be an hour. It depends on where you are in your walk with God, but it's about having a heart to give God the first fruit of our time and devotion by making Him a priority because He is worthy of it.

So, we should then treat Him as the honored guest that He is and prioritize Him by choosing what is better like Mary. 

ACCOMMODATE HIM

The seventh and final way that we can make our heart a home for Christ is to accommodate Him. When people come to your house, you make special accommodations for their needs.

Even if it's an inconvenience to you, because you want to treat them special as guests. Every day in your house, and every day of your life, you get to live in your house, the way that you want to. But there are days where you have guests and you accommodate them. So if you have a dog and your guest has allergies to dogs, you put your dog up somewhere where normally you would let them roam around. Or if your guest is cold, then you would turn up the heat a little bit to accommodate them.

We accommodate God in our hearts by ensuring that there's nothing offensive in our hearts to Him. What would offend God? Well, it's sin. How do we get rid of that sin? We let Him into our hearts to empower us and show us the Way.

Jesus doesn't just forgive us of our sins and clean up our hearts. He gives us the power to live holy and set apart lives that develop hearts that accommodate God. When we let Christ into our hearts, we have the power to overcome sin and enjoy free fellowship with God. 

Now I’d love to hear from you. What point from today’s episode will you implement into your life to make your heart a home for Jesus? Let’s encourage one another in the comments.

Before you go, I want to invite you to visit belovedwomen.org to download my free video Bible study called” Worry-Free” to discover the 3 lies feeding your worry and the truth to set you free so you can start taking steps today to make your heart a home for God. 

For more Beloved encouragement, be sure to join the Beloved Women app, by downloading our app in the Apple or Google play store, or visit belovedwomen.tv for unlimited videos to grow your faith, learn God’s Word, and encourage your soul with your Beloved sisters all over the world.

Thank you so much for watching today and until next time, be beautiful, be blessed, and beloved.