If you’re like me, you fill most waking moments with some sort of noise. Maybe it’s music, the radio, TV, Pandora, or podcasts. Too often, I find that the noise I’m shoving in my ears is my own voice. Read More “4 reasons I’m afraid of silence”
This quote by one of my favorite Christian authors has been haunting me for weeks.
No short cut exists for a deeper spiritual life…the man who would know God must give time to Him.
~ A. W. Tozer
Haunting me because I know it is true and no talk of “quality over quantity” can ever fully extinguish the conviction I have in my own soul that I don’t spend enough time with God.
I know all too well (when I am being honest with myself) that the first thing to go when I get really busy is my devotional time. I’ve gotten better at holding steady in periods of moderate busyness, but when things start really going crazy I tend to simply forget. Talk about twisted priorities.
When my mind starts going a million-miles-a-minute I just don’t yet have the discipline to quiet it for long enough. I need to work on that.
I’m learning to rest, but it’s not easy.
I realize that often, I’d sooner take an hour to read a book about communion with God than actually give him those same moments. I think it’s because it’s so much easier to absorb someone else’s thoughts than put in the effort to still myself enough to hear from God. Listening–really listening–often takes so much more effort than speaking.
I’m learning that it takes a certain quantity of time to learn how to have the highest quality time.
It’s become newly apparent to me that God wants a real, personal relationship with me and you. You and I both know real relationships require an investment of time in order to deepen and grow. Real relationships require giving up some things because being with the other person is simply worth it.
Who could be more worth it than God?
One of best things my wife and I have done for our marriage is intentionally making time to spend together, just the two of us. We’ve learned that this is absolutely essential for maintaining the close relationship that we need in order to have a healthy marriage and family.
We try to make time for a least a few moments each day, but sometimes we need a bit more time. So we have regular date nights where we can spend a couple hours together. Every now and then we’ll have the opportunity to spend the majority of the day together, just us. Those are treasured times.
Of course, they don’t just happen. Amber and I have to plan them, commit to them, and follow through. Intentionally making time for each other is a discipline.
I think that if you look at most of your relationships, you’ll find that you do this with your closest friends, mentors, and advisers. You have that extended, dedicated time for each other.
Do you do this for God? Do you spend time alone with God daily, weekly? Do you ever set aside a whole day or a large portion of your day just for prayer, Bible study, and sitting quietly with him?
Every analogy breaks down at some point, but here are some ways spending alone time with God is similar to dedicating exclusive time to any relationship:
First, determine if you’re ready to get outside your comfort zone. God never leaves us as we are. When we come into his presence we leave changed people (Tweet this). He is always at work in us. When you dedicate time to being alone with God, you are opening yourself up to a new level of intimacy with him. It won’t always be pleasant, but I promise it will be worth it.
Schedule your time. What gets scheduled, gets done. This is–in my opinion–a fact of life. Put your devotional time on the calendar, and treat it like you would any appointment with a VIP.
Don’t over-program. It’s great to go through a devotional book, keep a prayer journal, and perhaps even explore the liturgy as part of your personal time with God. That said, don’t forget to save a few moments to just be with him, without talking. I recommend Lectio Divina as way to practice listening to God.
What’s your greatest challenge when it comes to spending alone time with God? Let me know in the comments!
Keeping a prayer journal has been simultaneously one of the most rewarding and one of the most difficult decisions I’ve tried to stick with. Ultimately it’s been worth it, despite my own inconsistencies.
A prayer journal is a little different from simply keeping a diary, because the point isn’t just to record your thoughts, feelings, and observations (although a prayer journal might include those things). Instead, a prayer journal serves to record your conversations with God. Not just requests, but what he is teaching and revealing to you, and what you are saying to him. Read More “How and why you should keep a prayer journal”
Are you feeling far from God? You’re not alone. Even the greatest saints have struggled with doubt and the fear of being abandoned by God.
Remember Doubting Thomas? Even Mother Theresa endured a decades-long loss of feeling God’s presence.
Christians throughout the centuries have called this experience “The Dark Night of the Soul.”
16th century mystic John of Cross is known for his poems regarding this difficult (yet rewarding) experience. In this short, 3 minute video I’ll share some insight from John of the Cross that has helped me–and might help you–to make sense of the darkness.
I’ve written about how to find a spiritual mentor, but one thing is for sure: it’s not an instant process. It can sometimes take a while to find the right person–or for the right person to find you. If you’ve not yet found a spiritual mentor, take heart! Don’t forget these five ways to continue to grow as you pray and think about who might be a good mentor.
You may not be able to have an ongoing arrangement, but don’t forget the value of asking someone you respect in the faith to lunch every now and then. Perhaps you can make a habit of asking one person from whom you know you can learn to coffee once a week. Then remember to do more listening than talking.
I consider C. S. Lewis a spiritual mentor, even though he died long before I was born. I’ve read almost everything he’s written on Christianity and he is an author I return to frequently for reference when I come up on a theological problem. Tim Keller and N. T. Wright have also become mentors for me this way. Find a solid author that resonates with you, and begin to read all of their work.
Creating a life plan is an essential way to sharpen your focus and gain clarity on how to move forward in life. There are plenty of the self-guided programs out there; I recommend Storyline by Donald Miller. Going through Don’s process will take you a few weeks, but the time investment will pay off. You’ll begin to better understand what’s really important in your life and the areas that you need to be mentored in.
Everyone needs a mentor and to be mentored, depending on the season of their life. Consider whether it might actually be the time for you to reach out and find someone to invest in. As I’ve made mentoring others an integral part of my life, I’ve experienced tremendous personal and spiritual growth.
Enroll in classes online or at a local college that will benefit you spiritually. Consider church history, systematic theology, or even a class in spiritual formation. Read blogs and listen to podcasts that will help think through spiritual issues and gain biblical knowledge.
How have you continued to make spiritual growth a priority while you look for a mentor?
I recently asked my Facebook friends what distracted them from their personal time with God. Here are some of the answers:
As a “ministry professional” with young children, I get most of these reasons. Every day our Western culture bombards us with demands for our time and attention, and it’s hard to say no.
If God really is who he says he is, however, and we really believe that, we’ve got to learn to focus in on what’s really important: him. Here are 5 practical ways to guard your personal time with God from distraction. Each one takes time, planning, and commitment, but it will be so worth it.
Writing things down is powerful for creating motivation and making ideas concrete. List the reasons why you believe spending personal time with God through the Bible, prayer, and meditation is essential. Keep this list in the place you tend to get the most distracted (say, taped to your computer monitor).
Things that get scheduled get done. Make the effort to integrate your personal time with God with your schedule. Again, put it on paper! Find those 10-20 minute windows of opportunity in your day and determine to set them apart for God instead of reading articles online or socializing. Set up reminders on your phone so you don’t forget!
I know firsthand how difficult it is to find any kind of alone time when you have small children. You’ll have to touch base with your spouse and see if they can help you by taking the kids for 20 minutes while you close your bedroom door or step outside to walk and pray. Don’t forget you can do this for them, too. What a great way to minister to each other!
This one is really simple. Just give yourself a new rule for life: no checking Facebook or social media until you’ve spent time in the Word. If you’re getting sucked into your timeline or feed and wondering where all the time went, this small adjustment will keep your priorities straight in your head and in real life.
It often helps me to move away from my computer for my devotional time. I don’t necessarily even have to go to a different room of the house or head out to a park (although that’s nice). Sometimes just moving from my desk to a chair in the living room can help clear my mind and “reset.” If you have the room, setting apart a dedicated space for prayer in the form of a home altar, prayer room, or closet is helpful too.
What other ways have you fought distraction from your personal time with God?
Do you ever feel like you’ve hit a wall when it comes to spiritual growth? Does there seem to be something missing, even though you are pretty consistent with your prayer time and you read from the Bible regularly?
I’ve been there too. For me, the key to breaking through was trying something new…in my case, Christian meditation in the form of Lectio Divina.
For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food, for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child. But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil. (Hebrews 5:12-14, ESV)
According Hebrews 5:12, the foundational knowledge of salvation and the Gospel should be intimately familiar. The basics have to always be there (to continue the food analogy, we still need dairy in our diet) , however as we progress in the faith it is essential to grow in your understanding of doctrine and God’s character beyond “repentance from dead works…” (Heb. 6:1). Read More “What to do when you feel spiritually stuck”
Bible memorization is absolutely fundamental to spiritual formation. If I had to choose between all the disciplines of the spiritual life, I would choose Bible memorization, because it is a fundamental way of filling our minds with what it needs. This book of the law shall not depart out of your mouth. That’s where you need it! How does it get in your mouth? Memorization.
~ Dallas Willard
(“Spiritual Formation in Christ for the Whole Life and Whole Person” in Vocatio, Vol. 12, no. 2, Spring, 2001, 7).
There’s no doubt that memorizing Bible verses is difficult for many people (myself included!). A big aspect of the challenge for me has been that I haven’t been very methodical about memorizing. I’d simply repeat a verse a few times and hope that it stuck, with no plan for review. Going about memorizing halfheartedly like this is a recipe for discouragement and–ultimately–failure.
Effective methods for memorizing Bible verses always involve an intentional approach to internalizing new verses and reviewing old ones. Don’t think that there is a magic formula out there for doing this without putting in the hard work.
You’ve got to commit to the process and show up daily.
Here are three ways I’ve found to effectively memorize Bible verses. Read More “3 highly effective methods for memorizing Bible verses”
