Spending Time With God

When I promised God that I would try to spend at least an hour a day with Him, if I had stopped to try to find an additional hour in my day, I probably would have given up before I got started. My intentions were sincere, it was all or nothing at this point--but living them out was another issue. At that particular time in my life, I was working between 60 to 80 hours a week. . . plus I had family obligations, friends to spend time with, a tennis game to keep up, and down time for myself. . . finding an additional hour a day was nearly impossible! It quickly became evident, that if I didn’t set aside a specific block of time each day, this new endeavor was not going to be.

I found it was best to have my time with God at the beginning of each day when nothing would interrupt it -- no phone calls, no salespeople, no late appointments. That meant I had to get up at 5:30AM. The first couple of mornings went without a glitch. . .

The alarm clock went off. . .
I popped out of bed. . .
made some coffee (ok, strong coffee). . .
and had my time with God.

But, after all of 3 mornings, I found myself hitting the snooze button on my alarm instead of eagerly jumping out of bed. Being a notorious “snooze button” hitter, an hour elapsed before I finally pulled myself out of bed. There was no time for God. Refusing to give in to failure so quickly, a radical rearrangement of my schedule was needed. To be out of bed by 5:30AM, meant getting into bed no later than 10:30 - 11:00PM.

Early morning proved to be a good time to meet with God and after a couple of months of this routine, the habit was formed. For years I continued to keep my appointment with God early each morning.

My life is much different now. Today I live in a household of ten, which includes 6 kids between the ages of 15 and 10. While I was living alone it was easy to follow my own routine... no distractions, no noise, no other needs to attend to. I could dictate my own schedule. But, now the quiet time in the morning has been replaced with frequent early morning carpools or helping the kids study for upcoming tests. Now my appointment with God varies. Some mornings it takes place before everyone gets up. Other mornings it’s after the kids are off to school. But, I am convinced of one thing: If I don’t set aside a chunk of time in advance, I don’t spend any time with God during the day.