Skip to main content

5 Minutes

I am a rule-follower. I like rules, order, and justice. I struggle in living outside of my safe comfortable box-shaped life. I try and I am learning to curve the lines, but I cannot proclaim victory just yet. When I started my Christian journey in the 90s, daily quiet time and devotions were buzz words. This is what you did if you were a good Christian: you wake up, roll over onto your knees on the floor, say your prayers, grab your devotional book, and have a little quiet time with God. Give me all the rules and structure. I am sold!

Life happened and daily devotions became difficult to complete. I never really found one that held my attention. Never did I go too deep in searching my faith through these devotions. Daily quiet time became a ritual; something to check off the list. And then I had kids. Not only did I have kids, I had my first child who LOVED early mornings. I'm talking, if I woke up at 5:45am to get my quiet time in, he was up at 5:30am. And then I kept having kids and the chaos and volume grew exponentially. Have you ever tried to have a quiet time with the Lord while nursing an infant, chasing a mischievous one year old, and entertaining a four year old? It's not going to happen. My only quiet time with the Lord during those years were whisper prayers to God asking Him to help me survive the day.

We like structure. We like someone telling us how to maneuver through the Christian life. We want a list of things we need to do to be good checking them off throughout the day. When all is said and done, we've given God five minutes of our time reading someone else's Words not really experience Him at all. We leveled our faith bar to five minutes a day and an hour on Sunday becoming "devotional" Christians.

We've cheated ourselves. We've limited our faith experience because we think we can't. We have convinced ourselves that all we can do is five minutes of someone else's words about the Bible during the week and sometimes a service on Sunday. What we don't realize, is that the Bible is not off limits to us. All we need to do is start. We don't need a certain time of day. We don't need to be Bible scholars. We don't need to understand everything. We don't need to read an entire chapter, an entire book, or even the entire Bible. We just need to start.

I am currently in a season where I can meet with God at a designated time each day. I haven't always been here. Sometimes my daily God time looked like reading a single verse and praying throughout my day under my breath as I laid a baby down for a nap. There is no formula to spending time with God in His Word. Just do it. He wants to meet us there.

Don't be intimidated by the Bible. God has given you and me the Holy Spirit to steer us through. Don't take an author's perspective or even your pastor's opinion as the only authority. Let the Word speak to you and through you. Ask God to open your eyes, mind, and heart to understanding what it is you are reading. The more you read the Bible, the more alive it becomes.

The more we live in this "devotional" Christianity, the less equipped we are to face life. We cannot have a firm foundation if all we are doing is reading a daily devotion in order to check it off the list. When the storms come or a big decision needs to be made, we are going to be swallowed by the waves because our foundation is weak. We need the purity of reading the Scriptures to carry us through.

God is there, holy present, waiting for us to pick up His Word so He may speak to us. He is waiting to meet us there. He desires to meet us there. He is knocking. Are you willing to answer?

Love & Blessings,
Meg

"A time will come when people will not listen to accurate teachings. Instead, they will follow their own desires and surround themselves with teachers who tell them what they want to hear. People will refuse to listen to the truth and turn to myths." 2 Timothy 4:3-4

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Holy Holy

I can't stop singing, "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty." Scott and I went to the "big" ultrasound today where we tested to see if our baby had Down's, one of the Trisomy disorders, or any neural tube defects. I must admit the palms were a little sweaty and the heart was racing a bit. As surreal as this pregnancy is, I don't want anything to be wrong with this precious life inside of me. Well, holy is right. The Lord is not just good; He is awesome! Our little baby instantly began moving and grooving for us showing off fingers and toes and a great heart beat! Even though I am on my third, watching the miracle of life on that screen NEVER gets old! It truly blows my mind every time I get to see our precious angels developing inside of me! The scan came out wonderfully. We got all positives on all the scans the doctor (who was absolutely INCREDIBLE) could do. Now we just wait for some blood work to confirm that everything is okay with our little boy. ...

Our Miracle

"He performs wonders that cannot be fathomed, miracles that cannot be counted." Job 9:10 "You are the God who performs miracles; You will display Your power among the peoples." Psalm 77:14 Meet our miracle...and our secret. Yes, it is true. I am pregnant; about twelve weeks and a few days to be exact. We wanted to make sure this baby was healthy before announcing how great God has been to us! We have known about this precious little blessing for a little over two months and have eagerly awaited numerous sonogram and test results. We have witnessed God's mighty, yet gentle, hand every Tuesday for the past five weeks. This baby is a fighter. However, the road is not "clear" quite yet. We met with the pareanatoligist today to do a sonogram and blood test to determine if there are any chromosomal abnormalities; specifically Downs, and Trisomy 13 and 18. Although the sonogram looked great and the doctor said we were in the "safe zone," we are stil...

Grady's Story

Grady Steven Fish 7lbs. 3oz. 19 1/2inches April 25, 2009 4:45pm SURPRISE! Actually, I think absolute shock is more appropriate! This was me a week ago...happy at 36 weeks pregnant with not much happening. I thought for sure that I had at least 2 weeks left, if not four. I did, however, frantically run around town that day getting all the things I thought I needed to get just in case. Good thing I am a little neurotic and OCD because it paid off a few days later. I have had contractions on and off since I was 25 weeks pregnant or so. I never thought anything of them because they were so sporadic and fairly painless. Friday camearound and I noticed that I was having more contractions than usual. Grady was still moving about so I didn't worry much. Around 2:30pm that day I laid down because the contractions were coming on a little stronger and closer together. I called Scott to let him know and honestly, to see when he was coming home from work. Jackson was still napping and I wasn...