Our empowerment is in His presence.

"We can be tired, weary and emotionally distraught, but after spending time alone with God, we find that He injects into our bodies energy, power, and strength." - Charles Stanley.

I've spoken many times on the importance of special time with God and how I believe with all my heart that God's presence is the key to thriving in life.  I really believe I'm living proof of that because I've been on both sides. I've been the one who lived in survival mode, woke up with my girls and not set a side a time for just me and Jesus to soak.

And I've been the one who woke up at 4:00AM bright and early to seek His face and it's seriously a night and day difference. I feel like I'm a totally different person when I spend time with God before I do anything else and that's because I am.

When I wake up into the presence of God I'm a daughter of The King, I'm powerful, I see His beauty and admire it from afar as I sip my hot cup of coffee and read my devotional while waiting for my girls to wake up and being ready to start my day.

But when I wake up to my daughters rushing me out of bed to change soaked diapers, feed them breakfast and and all the demands that mornings can bring. When I don't firstly give all my limits to a God who has none I soon realize that my limits have been reached and it's before 10:00 AM and suddenly it's survival mode from here on out.

I'm not gonna encourage you to wake up before your kids to get that time in.. I believe mornings are different for everyone and not everyone functions their best in the morning and need that extra sleep. For me I love the mornings however, maybe your time could be at night before you go to sleep. Because truth is your day really starts at night before you go to sleep because if you haven't noticed what you meditate on, feel and reflect on right before you fall asleep is what you wake up reflecting on. God created sleep to be a special time between you and Him and just like mornings I believe God has special plans for His children who quietly seek God with all their hearts and say "Okay God, my night is yours".

I was listening to a sermon once of a guy who spoke about a Ministry conference He attended a few years ago. At the conference a young Pastor spoke about what pastors need to be doing.
"Pastors need to be available all the time. Pastors need to always take phone calls, never shut anyone out and always leave the church doors open so that people can come and speak with Him. Their availability needs to be 100%. And after this young man was finished an older Pastor stood up and said  "Might I make a statement and say that if we don't take personal time. If we don't take time to rest and shut the doors and leaving time for just us and Holy Spirit how would we have anything to give to the people? "

I was really moved by that story.. How can our availability (that has limits) be given  to our kids 100% of the time if we're not giving our limits to God by meeting with Him? So that He could take our limits, our ordinary, our weaknesses and in Him replace it with limitless, extraordinary and strength.  Because sisters, that is what's done when we soak into His presence. He renews strength, fills cups and puts restoration into our beings to where we can live with rest even on the days where we've had no sleep in 24 hours.

Even throughout the day we can speak to God and talk with Him while praying scripture. We should never be too busy to pray because when we're too busy to pray, we become too busy to have power. When we have our days when we feel we're too busy or rushed to get that time with Jesus in we accomplish less than normal due to our weariness because we did everything in our own limited strength. We have a great deal of activity, but we accomplish little.

Spending time with God puts everything into perspective. When we spend time with Him our focus is on Him which means bad moods are impossible because who could be in a bad mood when you're focused on a Father, a God, a Beloved who loves you with a perfect love?

Do you remember what it was like when you were first pursued by your husband? That mushy gushy crazy love that you felt.. If you were anything like me I could have been hit by a big bus and still thought "I love Leon and He loves me".  He was all I could talk about, think about and dream about. It was a place in my life where everything was bliss and I was all smiles because I was in love. Nothing else mattered.

But you know, I would have never had those feelings if I didn't let Leon pursue me, if I never went out on dates with Him and let Him love on me.. I would have never been on cloud love if I didn't give him the time and my availability to call me at 11:00Pm at night or  go on a starbucks date at 6:00AM just to do it.. That's the same with God.

God wants to pursue us, give us those amazing blissful feelings and amaze us with His love and bring us to a place where everything that weighed us down is so small because next to Him nothing matters. He wants to do that! And the only thing that would keep Him from giving us His power, strength, and energy to equip us with today's tasks is our availability.

Today are we going to mom with our limits or God's no limits. Are we going to be first  Daughters of  a Powerful God before we are wives, moms and friends? 

Heather Leigh is the founder of Arrows and warriors online ministry. She is firstly a daughter of God and loves meeting with Him early in the morning before her little arrows wake up. She is married to her best friend Leon and together have two little girls Evelynne and Liya.

Heather loves the color pink, all things coffee shops and coffee, tea parties and dress up with her girls and going on adventures and exploring through the eyes of her children as they show her glimpses of God's Kingdom.