How to enjoy spending time with God

Spending time alone with God should be the most natural, enjoyable thing we ever do. But for a lot of Christians it's awkward and frustrating. There's a better way, and it's simple. Today I want to give you the all-important starting point to enjoying time with God.


If you've been around Christian circles, you know we value spending time alone with God. It's one of those things all Christians should do. ("Should" -- I've come to look sideways at that word. It is the source of much evil.) The problem is, if you're like a lot of people, you don't enjoy spending time alone with God. You likely feel that you don't know what to do. You try it, but all the while, you fret that you probably aren't doing it right. But dutiful you, you plow through devotions -- at least a handful of times. But it's confusing, feels like work, and makes you anxious. Soon and very soon there comes that day when you decide to walk past your Bible and pick up the tv remote instead. You are only days into a practice of devotions, and you've already quit. Now you feel guilty and do what people have been doing since Adam and Eve: you hide from God. So, what started as a way of connecting with God turned into the exact opposite: something that keeps you from God.

The reason I know this cycle is because I've done it -- all of it. But over the years I have found a better way. I'm enjoying my life with God like never before, and you can too. In fact, God wants that for you.

I'll start right at the beginning, because the starting point sets the tone for your whole meeting with God. If your starting point is getting things done, devotions will feel like work. If your starting point is that you're a miserable sinner, devotions will feel like wallowing and cowering. If your starting point is getting devotions done right, then it will feel like taking a driving test at the DMV. And so on.

Here's the starting point I recommend: make time with God a treat.

Simple idea, right? But what does it look like?

Making time with God a treat can look like this...
I like to have time with God as soon as I get up in the morning. I make myself a cup of strong black tea with just the right amount of milk and honey to soften and sweeten the brew. Often I light a candle because I like how scented candles make the whole room feel and smell. Then I settle into my favorite chair -- a leather mission recliner that has been "my chair" for years. The scene becomes a vehicle to enjoying time with my Father. A sip of tea becomes a prayer. The fragrance of the candle reminds me of his goodness. And the words of Scripture blend into all this. I love doing devotions. It's my favorite part of the day. I find that my heart softens to the Father as I luxuriate with him. And let's get one thing straight. God is infinitely enjoyable and likes for us to enjoy him and the world he has given us!

Making time with God a treat can look like this...
This week one of our parishioners at Sanctuary told me she recently bought a leather chair she had been wanting for a long time. When she went to do make devotions a treat, it had to happen in that chair. Then she made herself a chai tea. And -- here's my favorite part -- she munched on a Pop Tart. She said she started thanking God, and suddenly her whole being was filled with his joyful warmth. So, there's one recipe: a chair, a chai, and a Pop Tart.

Making time with God a treat can look like this...
Another parishioner texted me a photo of her scene. She lit a scented candle and opened her Bible to Psalm 118. As she settled in, her dog came over and laid his chin on the table. Apparently he wanted to get in on things too. Smart! She says she's finding that setting the scene for our time God is like getting the house ready for company. "You get out the good stuff." For her, that includes the good coffee with cocoa and sprinkles of cinnamon. She's moving from viewing time with God as a burdensome "should" to making it a treat, and it's flavoring her whole day.

Making time with God a treat can look like this...
Last night after a long day, I shut my laptop at 9:00 (no laptop after 9:00 is my rule). I decided to make the rest of the evening time with the Father. So I turned on the water fountain in the back yard, poured myself a glass of wine and settled into an Adirondack chair. I even smoked a little bit of a cigar someone had given me. I made no great speeches to God. I just relaxed and enjoyed him. Somewhere in there I had a whim to listen to a bunch of Queen songs too. :-) Some would say I was doing time with God all wrong. But the Father and I simply communed last night, and that's what matters.

There is a lot of advice out there about how you "should" spend time with God, and "here's how to do it right." Let's begin with a more relaxed starting point: make time with God a treat. Try it and let me know what happens!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular Posts

Ten essential Dallas Willard quotes

Image
This week the church has lost a great saint and a shining light. Dallas Willard succumbed to cancer. As John Ortberg says in a wonderfully written tribute , Willard was brilliant, but "his heart and his life were better than his mind." I thought it would be appropriate to bring out ten quotes that do a pretty good job of getting at what Willard spent his life teaching and working on. 1. This quote states the central problem Willard spent his career working on: "My hope is to gain a fresh hearing for Jesus, especially among those who believe they already understand him. In his case, quite frankly, presumed familiarity has led to unfamiliarity, unfamiliarity has led to contempt, and contempt has led to profound ignorance." (opening paragraph of  The Divine  Conspiracy ) 2. The central problem, restated: "The governing assumption today, among professing Christians, is that we can be 'Christians' forever and never become disciples." ( The Gre...
Read more

Why I have no hope of going to heaven

Image
I have little hope of going to heaven. In fact, I don't even want to go to heaven. Why? Because if we mean by "heaven" the final destination for God's people, then heaven isn't somewhere we go at all. Heaven isn't up in the sky. Heaven is here. When we say "heaven," most people think it's the place you go when you die. You are with God and his people, and you live forever in eternal bliss. The trouble is, that's a half-truth. It's not the biblical hope. Imagine it like this. Say you are living in a house that has been your beloved home for a long time, but it has fallen into disrepair. The plumbing is bad, the roof leaks and the house is infested with termites. You have painted the walls, and you even bought new kitchen appliances. You love the house, but it needs extensive work. Now through the generosity of a rich relative, you suddenly come into an inheritance huge enough that you can have your beloved house completely remod...
Read more

Backpacking at the Dinkey Lakes

Image
I just returned from a backpacking trip in the high Sierras with my dad and oldest son. We packed in an area near Fresno called the Dinkey Lakes Wilderness. Yes, the lakes were dinky, as in small. Most natural alpine lakes are. But the place is really named for a small dog named Dinkey who protected his master by attacking a charging grizzly bear, giving the man time enough to grap a rifle and kill the bear. Dinkey lost his life for his act of heroism, but he was such an inspiration that an entire Sierra wilderness was named after him. Anyway, we visited eight lakes, each of them stunningly beautiful in its own right. The visit was everything we could have hoped. We shared adventure, exploring places we had never been. We fished -- successfully. We swam and goofed off. We enjoyed each other's company. There is nothing like three generations of a family getting large chunks of uninterrupted time together. The bonds between all three of us were strengthened, and for that we are deepl...
Read more

A test of your relationship with God

Do you have the kind of relationship with God that is like a married couple, including fights and spats? That’s the biblical, Jewish picture of a person who really knows God.  At a certain point in life when I was dealing with some major disappointments, I came to the conclusion that it would be better to yell all my frustrations at God than go through a separation and live apart from him. That’s why I love this quote from Lois Tverberg and her quote of Peter Kreeft so much. Trust me, you’ll want to read to the bottom of this discussion of Job.  “Job’s friends were making the mistake that Western Christians do today when we don’t have a Hebraic understanding of the ‘knowledge of God’—da’at Elohim. A Westerner opens the Bible and wants to prove God’s existence and construct a theology to explain God’s nature. We would call that ‘knowledge of God.’ But in Hebrew, to ‘know’ someone was to be familiar with him through experience and relationship, as a wife knows her husband.....
Read more

Connecting with God when it feels like nothing special is happening

Image
I read recently that Facebook has been known to lead to depression. This person just enjoyed a vacation to Hawaii. That person's kids are cuter and apparently don't act up like yours. And that friend over there just won another award. If you're feeling sassy about your life, you join in on the bragging parade. If that little gray cloud is hovering over you reminding you of how things just aren't turning out, Facebook makes it worse. Today I decided to raise my fist in protest by writing a post about the morning my walk with God was less like leaping forward and more like shuffling along. It's like getting on Facebook and posting, "Nothing special happened in my world this morning. You feel me?" This morning I got up and made tea like usual. I sat in my chair like usual. I began my prayer time, like usual, with these words: "You were [God’s] enemies, separated from him by your evil thoughts and actions. Yet now he has reconciled you to himself...
Read more