Hey Friend -

It's Friday morning and I just wrapped up a fantastic time of private devotion. I love talking about the power of the private devotional life. It is part of the Christian tradition spanning throughout time, but I still don't think it gets thought about enough.

What I want to share with you today is how I think through spending that time throughout the week.

One of the fallacies we can fall into is thinking this takes significant time. I don't think it does. What it does take is deliberateness in focus and a willingness to experiment and think through how we each do this uniquely.

I have a couple of assumptions as part of it.

1. We need to enter devotional time with the express state of heart that we desire to change.
2. Part of the primacy of the spiritual experience is we can engage with the presence of God and the state of the presence is a desired focus.

So with those assumptions, let me share with you how I see three different types of devotional time and how they relate to a busy schedule. This works for those in ministry, or those simply following Jesus.

The basic/non-negotiable​
For me, this means scripture and prayer. I am going to follow the daily office reading plan and spend time prayer, usually through a basic journal entry. I know I can do those readings, make basic notes in my Bible, and utilize my journal to think briefly through three categories; prayers, thankfulness, and yielding. If I am especially stretched for time or space, I might even use the Daily Office app to read using my iPhone. I try for this to not happen.

This is a 20-minute process if extremely truncated.

Normal Devotions​
It's roughly the same as above, but I will absolutely be in my physical Bible. I will take more time for notes and reflection in the Bible and Journal. I will do all of the daily office prayers, not just the scripture readings. My journal might have more reflection, a quick journal entry on a specific piece of scripture, and I'll go through a handful of my devotional cards and reflect on them. I did a video about these cards here. I might even come across something that gets added to a new card.

I also try to read a short chapter in classic devotional writing. I like EM Bounds, The Imitation of Christ, or something similar.

The normal devotion time takes around 45 minutes.

The Long Devotion​
This is a weekend thing. It might happen 1x or 2x a week. It is yet another expansion of the previous two, but I spend more time in everything. I pray the full office. I also read an extended piece of other literature, and take notes about it. This morning I read John Wesley's sermon The Wilderness State, outlined it, and took notes. I thought through several of the things in the sermon that impacted me and thought through those in my journal. I also read a few sections in Augustine's Confessions. With the long devotion, I give myself time to do everything slowly.

The long devotion might stretch for a couple of hours.

I know this might seem a bit much, and I recognize my life and family rhythms give me time for this. The long devotion for you might look very different.

But I think learning to value the devotional life in ways to make sacrifices and decisions to do so. This morning, I read in Augustine about his own ill-focuses in his younger life that moved him away from pursuing God. There are other things we can choose to spend our life on, in pursuit of what we call good...but if we aren't recognizing the call of God on our hearts and pointing ourselves toward a greater experience, are we actually following God?

I hope this finds you well as you enter the weekend. And I hope you take a few extra moments to spend with the presence of God.

Chad