So just for a matter of input, just practice stopping: shut the door, be alone, just stop for a moment. Stop the phone, turn off your cell phone, turn off your computer, turn off anything electronic, make sure you've got no one to interrupt you. Just stop, so you've got unhurried time to focus on the Lord. Second, you begin to praise Him. Just begin to start to speak, speak language of thanksgiving. Psalm 22 Verse 3 says: as we praise Him, His presence begins to come; so you can actually do this as you're driving in the car. You can do it if you're in your office, just shut the door. You can do it just in a moment you can have alone. Just begin to quietly praise the Lord; and thirdly, you need to focus. The Bible says in Psalm 46:10: be still and know I'm God; so I've got to still myself. That means getting rid of distracting thoughts, and allowing my mind to be just centred, that God is here with me, the spirit of God is dwelling within me. I become conscious, it's focussing your attention. Now that means stopping your mind going all over the place.
Of course if you've got a busy mind, and need to be in control, your mind will remember 103 things you have to do; you've just got to sit still, breathe quietly, close your eyes, just begin to talk to the Lord, and begin to become aware of Him. Gaze on Him with your eyes. Begin to see Him, picture Him. Thank You Lord, You're here, You are with me. Allow all of your inner mind to just begin to focus on Him, and to reach out and just embrace and enjoy His presence. Once you start doing that, you don't need to do much more. You can begin to lock into becoming aware of the presence of God, and then listen to Him. He may drop something into your heart, He may have something to say, you know, just have words of love. He may just have reassurance, and you know all of this could take three to four minutes, five minutes, something like that. That's all.
But what you're doing is, you're just stopping the pressure of the world, saying no to it; and you're withdrawing for a moment, to just refocus your inner man, that I am connected to God, and He loves me. So you begin to gaze upon Him, begin to fix your mind on a scripture, fix your mind on Him, just begin to picture Him as your friend, there to listen to you, to love you, and allow all of your inner man to just reach out and embrace Him, and refuse the distractions around you. Now it's a discipline to develop. Initially when you try to develop it, it's a bit of a challenge, because you just realise how busy you are, and your mind just goes everywhere; but I encourage you, if you would just over the next week or two, apart from having your morning time with the Lord, just through the day, just stop everything you're doing, begin to just start to become still, praise the Lord, become aware of His presence, begin to love Him and receive His love.
What will happen is, you start to become very conscious of the presence of God, like right now, just as I did that, I was suddenly aware of the presence of God, suddenly become aware. See if you just stop - it's the hardest thing of all to do, because the moment you stop, all the noise that's inside you, you become aware of; and so that causes you to have to resolve it, but it's not hard. Thank You Lord, I just thank You Lord for Your presence with me now. [Prays in tongues] Thank You Lord for Your loving presence. I just begin to set my mind to see Him there. He's my friend - become aware of the spirit of God is within me, and I love You Holy Spirit. I just embrace You. I thank You You're there to strengthen me and help me. Just become aware of His presence. The presence of God comes. He just suddenly comes upon you. You suddenly become aware of God very, very simply, very easily, and then God's able to speak with you. God's able to do things.