Whatever way you choose to engage the Lord personally, don’t let your devotions be the sum of it. Perhaps they are the main meal of the day, but they are not intended to be the only time you talk to God, as if you have “God time” and then the rest of your time. Instead, a healthy devotional life will simply be a more focused and extended time of engaging your closest companion, a friend to whom you speak in 4 second snippets and bursts throughout the rest of your day.
Spending meaningful time alone with God is one of the most important aspects of the Christian life, but it is also one of the most difficult to sustain. Failure in this area, real or perceived, is common and is guilt inducing for most Christians. We give many different reasons for our struggle: it bores us, it discourages us, it’s work, we’re busy with the things we really have to do, and so on. But I suspect the vast majority of our problem boils down to some version of a simple truth: it doesn’t always feel good.
So, I’d like to recommend a few out-of-the-box ways to re-spark a struggling devotional life, but in light of what I’ve just said above, let me make two things crystal clear at the outset. First, my goal in encouraging devotions isn’t to help you feel good. It’s wonderful when you come away from time with God uplifted, encouraged, and re-energized. But in itself, how you feel about it isn’t the point. (Which is good, because my own devotional time this morning was the emotional equivalent of drinking soda that’s been sitting out all night.) Second, your hope can never be pinned on a specific devotional technique. There is no one way of having quiet times that, if you could just find and practice it, guarantees solid or faithful devotions. The sooner we accept that even benefitting from our Bibles is a gift of God, the better off we’ll be.
