Wednesday, July 20, 2016

When you feel too busy, do you still make prayer or reading the Bible a priority?

John 15:7

If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.

Too Busy for the Word?

I had a bad habit years ago of rushing out of bed at the last possible moment to have just enough time to shower, shave, grab a bite to eat and then try to squeeze in some Bible reading just before I went to work. Being a bi-vocational pastor is hard enough, but to try and short myself in the Word of God was the height of folly. Instead of believing I didn’t have enough time to read my Bible or more of my Bible, I didn’t have enough time in my day not to! In other words, the very fact that my day is jam-packed is the very reason I need to start my day off with reading my Bible. I now get up earlier, and next to praying, the very first thing I do is read my Bible. It has made a huge difference in my day. Not only is my day not as hectic, I have the Word of God in my heart and mind when I start my day. Was I really too busy for God? Yes, for a very long time, but not anymore!

Too Busy for the Talk?

What if our boss came up to us and asked a question? Can you conceive of telling him or her that you’re too busy to talk to them? But that’s exactly what we are telling God if we leave no time for prayer. I started a new thing at the same time I started getting up earlier in the morning to allow time for me to read my Bible. I set the alarm clock a bit earlier, and in that time before I get up, I pray. The first thing I do is pray, followed by reading the Bible. I say, “No prayer, no coffee, no Bible, no breakfast,” and I am sticking to that, as tempting as it is to cut corners, but if I cut out these vital things in my day, my day ends up typically much worse than if I started my day off with prayer and with the Word of God. If I am too busy to pray, then I am too busy! That means that I have to start cutting things out of my day that are not as important as prayer and Bible reading. We don’t treat our friends or our boss that way, do we? By shorting them when they want to talk to us? But that’s exactly what we do when God is speaking to us in His Word and when we are speaking to God in prayer but have no time for these. Jesus ties our time spent in abiding in Him with answered prayer (John 15:7).

Prioritizing the Day

If you wrote down and kept a journal of everything you did in a week’s time, from the time you got up until the time you went to bed, what would your journal look like? Where is the most time devoted to? Of course, work, family, or school may well take the vast majority of the day because Jesus said that He worked (John 5:17), so there’s nothing wrong with that, but, of course, Jesus’ work and ours are a lot different. He worked solely for the Father, and even though we do, too, we must work a secular job to support ourselves and our family. If you had the list before you right now and started ranking these items, which would you put as #1, then as #2, and so on? Something to think about, isn’t it?

A Closing Prayer

Great Creator God, thank You for giving me Your Word to grow by, and thank You for lending me Your ear to listen to me in prayer. Please help me to learn to prioritize my life so that I can never be too busy for You, and forgive me when I have so often done just that. In Jesus Christ’ Holy Name I pray.

Amen

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