That title was a mouthful!

That is exactly how I felt this morning as I joined some of the men from my church for a nice early Saturday morning hike over at Aguirre Springs, right outside of Las Cruces. It is basically desert land, but that doesn't take away of the beauty and perfection of God's creation.

Other than the fact of the constant buzzing of bugs and the fear of running into an angry snake (which fortunately did not happen), it was a great time. It was a time of reflexion and separation from our busy lives as men for a couple of hours. It was a good time of retreat away from society, cars, computers, jobs, families, worries, etc, and just hang out in the wilderness, worshiping what God so beautifully made.

The theme for our hike was from different places in the Gospels in which Jesus retires himself from the crowds, from performing miracles and even from His disciples to commune and spend some "alone time" with His Heavenly Father. We did that same thing, we went out, talked, fellowshipped and looked at scripture, even sang a few worship songs, and basically communed and had fellowship with God.

I always find it funny how hard it is for me to have "alone time" with God, there is always something that is distracting me; it is either computers, TV, work, school or even friends, everything can take us away from devoting that time to God, it is such an important part in our walk with Him, and yet we get so easily distracted by so much.

This week (actually a couple days ago), the power cord for my laptop decided to give out, I could not charge my laptop's battery, therefore I couldn't use it. I was frustrated and even wondered "well, what I am going to do if I can't use my computer?"...God gave me an answer, He reminded me, first of all, how silly it was that I was so upset that something that I sit in front of to entertain myself wasn't working and second, that I could invest that time with Him. I read my Bible, prayed and caught up on reading a book. For my luck, I called the manufacturer and I was still in warranty and I had a new power cord delivered the next day (which surprises me how fast I got it).

I believe God used that case to remind me that I need more time with Him, that just like Jesus I need to retreat myself from the crowds and the noise in life to spend time with Him. Unfortunately I live right in the middle of the city and don't have the wilderness right around the corner, but I can make it a point to turn everything off (which is hard, but doable), and dedicate more time with Him.