Busy lives lead to less opportunity to be alone with God. Here’s 6 ways to help you make space for spending time with God.
The trouble with busy lives is that the busier we become, the greater the tendency for God to be blocked out. For me, the traditional quiet time just doesn’t cut it anymore.
Of course, most of us intend to spend more time with God. It’s just that life tends to take over: all the getting to work, dropping the kids at school, sorting the house out, and so on, can get on top of you and wear you out.
Sound familiar? I experienced it myself a few years back…
No Time With God
I was snowed under. Not literally, but figuratively. Think of every cliché to do with being over-burdened and that’s how I felt.
I was up to my eyeballs with work, drowning in hospital appointments and I was racked with guilt every day, when I tried to get home on time to help my wife with our young kids.
I believed what I was doing at work was important, so I tried to stick with it, but I found out (too late) that it wasn’t nearly as crucial as I thought. I was permanently stressed, exhausted and anxious.
It took its toll on my physical health and on my family. I seemed to catch every little bug or virus going round and each one knocked me down much harder than it should. And the consequence of all of this, was that I spent even less time with God than I wanted to.
That’s why being made redundant came as a blessed relief.
I learned the hard way, that the truly important thing in life isn’t what I do, but the relationships I have, especially the one I have with the Lord. Without realising, I had become part of a living parable. Like the seed that fell among thorns (Luke 8:14), the “troubles of this life” had strangled my walk with God and crushed my very soul.
Avoid The Drift So You Can Spend Time With God
And it’s not just in the extremes that it happens.
Earlier in the year, I finished Michael Hyatt’s book on life planning, Living Forward. Inside, he talks about a time when he went snorkeling with his wife while they were on holiday. They got so absorbed in what they were looking at, that when they looked up they realised that they had drifted right out to sea. They then faced the difficult task of swimming back to shore – against the current.
Michael uses that illustration to make the point that if we want to stop the drift, we need to be intentional about where we are headed. After all, as he argues in the book, many of us spend more time planning a holiday than we do planning our lives!
I agree with him …and I feel the same way about my relationship with God. As I said in my own recently published book How To Hear God’s Voice, if we want to hear the Lord then we need to be intentional about spending time with him.
“If we want to hear the Lord then we need to be intentional about spending time with him.”
6 Ways To Spend Time With God
So how do you find more time to spend with God, while still juggling all of your other commitments? I talk about it in more detail in the book, but here’s 6 ways to help you do just that:
1. Schedule It In
We have to be intentional if we want to spend time with God. And one of the best ways of being intentional is to put aside time for it in your diary. Add an appointment in at the right time/day and make a point of keeping to it.
2. Get Up Earlier
If you have young kids and really need your sleep, you may think this is the last thing you would want to do. However, young kids are likely to wake you up early anyway. By setting an alarm just a bit before their ETC (Estimated Time of Chaos 😉 ), you can use the opportunity and get some space with God before they grab all your attention – and your energy.
3. Find A Place At Work, School Or College
Look for a place where you can go, preferably a green space. Try to get there either as a break from work or study during the day, or on the way to or from school or college. Natural surroundings work best, but even a quiet corner somewhere like a library can help.
4. Get Time With God In The Car
If you drive to work then why not use the time to pray? – With your eyes open, of course! You can pray, sing, worship and even shout to the Lord (depending on where you are), without fear of anyone else knowing what you’re up to. Since I started doing this a few years ago, it’s transformed my daily commute.
5. Take A Break
When you’re at work, you have to focus on, well, work. But you can’t focus on one thing, 100%, all day. By taking regular breaks, you not only refresh your mind and become more productive, you can also use the opportunity to pray and listen to God.
6. Pray Silently Before Picking Up The Phone
Are you in a job where you are on the phone all day? Pray before you pick up each call. Ask God what he wants to do with that conversation.
So that’s just a few ways you can use to spend more time with God throughout your day.
If you’d like to learn more about spending more time with God in a meaningful way, you may like my book How To Hear God’s Voice.
Before you go I have a question for you:
Discussion question: How do you find time for God during your busy day?
