Well actually if you haven't realised it, you're not made to be God yet. We're made in His image, but we can't do His job, you know? Like that movie - what was that movie, that one with Jim Carrey in it? It was brilliant - Bruce Almighty, and that was great, what it's like when you're trying to play God. It really is very difficult. It's better to resign from being God, and say: actually I've got limits on what I can do. It's okay for me to have limits, and one of the things I've determined to do is, I'm going to build my closeness with God, very simple. So how are you going to do that? Here's a few simple keys for you. We need to fellowship with the Holy Ghost, and intimacy means talking, listening and enjoying the presence. So talking, listening and enjoying someone; so if I'm going to be intimate with someone, I need to be able to just enjoy them. I know we have some fast songs, they're to get you from being apathetic. Once you've jumped up and down a few times and loosened up, get willing to get going, you don't need those songs any more. It's just to get your body moving, and out of the apathy.
Really the thing is to actually engage in our heart with the Lord, be able to enjoy Him. Some people are too busy, they can't enjoy silence. They can't enjoy it. It requires solitude to build intimacy with the Lord. Solitude is a crucial part of building intimacy with the Lord. You must have time to be alone, and being alone means you shut out the world, no one has access, you're alone. Wherever that place is, okay, you just choose but you've got to have solitude. In Mark 1 Verse 35 it tells us that Jesus rose up very early. He had an early prayer life, He got up early in the morning, so intimacy with the Lord requires a number of things, but let me give you a couple of simple things.
Number one, you need to build daily time with God, build an altar to the Lord. Make sure that you build some time, when you are alone with God, there's a time when you're praying in tongues, stirring your spirit man, time when you're worshipping Him, time when you're reading the word of God, time for when you're journaling, those things that make up a daily devotional time, most of you are familiar with. But I want to share with you something else that will actually lift this level to another level altogether, and it's what I call 'praise pauses'. So you've got daily devotion; you get up in the morning, have a time with God. I encourage you to think about doing praise pauses. In Psalm 119 Verse 164, David seven times a day, stopped to become aware of the presence of God, and to just praise Him. Daniel in 6:10, Daniel three times a day, stopped to become conscious of the presence of God. Now he managed a country the size of the United States, and yet three times a day he stopped, to become conscious of the presence of God.
So to praise pause means simply stopping, to centre your attention on the Lord, and enjoy Him. That's all it is. It's just a pause, anywhere you want it in your day, to just praise the Lord, and enjoy being with Him - that's all it is. It takes a bit of energy to do that. I can tell you. You have to make a decision to do it. and some people call it practising the presence of God, any kind of way you want to call it doesn't worry. It's just actually. you've just got to stop. [laughs] got to stop for a moment. So let me just give you a few things that make it up. and then we'll finish up. How can you do this? The first thing you've got to do is just stop, got to make a conscious decision somewhere in your day, preferably two or three times through the day, you'll just stop what you're doing, let the world carry on without you. With all its messes, its problems, it does not need you. It will carry on after you're gone, with almost no one aware you left, except those immediately around you.