I’ve always wanted to live in God’s presence – aware of Him moment by moment. But the world’s many distractions make it hard.

The devotional I’ve been reading in the morning has some neat thoughts about this. Living in God’s presence is like collaborating with Him. The work we do becomes infused with His presence. “It is no longer laborious but delightful: more like play than work.”

Hmm, sounds like my cooking now-a-days. I’ve been enjoying it more than ever now that I’m putting together a cookbook. Last night I even enjoyed cleaning up my kitchen because I played some neat worship music while I did so. Yes, that was living in God’s presence. The work became like play. And all of my kitchen work has become part of the cookbook project – the creative pathway God has planted in me.

Over the next few weeks I’ll be collaborating with a psychotherapist, constructing a recovery narrative. This is part of a study to discover the impact of personal narratives. We had one session already. And, because it’s collaborative, it’s turning out to be like play as well.

The writing process involves telling my story to the therapist and her getting it down in note form and on tape. Then she transcribes it and sends the results to me in bare bone form. I then edit the results, writing in my own voice.

Now, I’ve done lots of writing on my own. It’s hard work trying to formulate thoughts and getting them down. But the rewriting and editing I did yesterday on what I had done with the therapist was not like work at all. It was more like play. Collaborating with someone made it easy.

That’s how it is when we make God part of our day to day life. It’s that way when we follow the pathway He shows us. It becomes easy. In Matthew 11:30, Jesus says, “For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

My devotional shows Jesus saying, “Whatever you do, do it for Me – with Me, through Me, in Me. Even menial tasks [like dishes] glow with the Joy of My Presence when you do them for Me.”

How true!