Spending time with god

Why should we spend time with God? When we have a to-do list as long as our arm, why should we make sure spending time with God is right at the top? 

 In Matthew 6:6, Jesus says, "when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father". Here, He's talking about how we shouldn't "role-play before God" but be "simple and honest" as The Message version puts it. Later, in Matthew 6:33 Jesus says, "seek first the Kingdom of God". He doesn't say, when you've got a spare minute in the month, seek God until you've got something that needs to be done more urgently. He says seek first - before you do anything else - the Kingdom of God. Why should we spend time with God? Because He says we should. 

When we get intimate with God and draw near to Him, He draws near to us (James 4:8) and let's be honest, who doesn't want God close by?

We should spend time with God because that's what Jesus did. Possibly the things I find the most inspiring in the entire Gospel is when Jesus went off by himself to pray on a mountain. We can assume that Luke wrote in chronological order, since he says he's giving an "oderly account". Therefore, Jesus had a busy day preaching and feeding thousands, and before that His cousin was beheaded. So He's probably exhausted - both emotionally and physically. Even still, He climbs a mountain and prays to God. 

I have a friend that I've known for 7 years. First she was a teaching assistant in my class, then my Youth Minister, and now my friend. When we first met, it probably took a while to recognise her voice. If she were standing at the other end of the playground and shouted my name, or laughed, I wouldn't know it was her. Now, however, I can hear her before I can see her, and I know it's her because I know her voice. It's the same with God - we won't be able to hear His voice in the day-to-day if we don't know what it sounds like. 

Think about it - God became flesh and walked the earth, was persecuted, thought of you whilst He died a painful death to remove our sins (a death we deserved), then thousands of years later He created you, knows the number of hairs on your head and had the most spectacular plan for your life.... even when I've put it in the most simplest form, it's obvious that God wants a relationship for us. 

Finally, we should spend time with God because He wants to tell us things. Jeremiah 33:3 says, "call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know". 


But how do we spend time with God?
Here are a few ways that I find helpful....

• - watching preaches on YouTube that are aimed at my demographic. Don't get me wrong, preaches at my own Church are really great and I do get (spiritually) fed from it, but I find that I learn so much more when I listen to preaches from Soul Survivor or Limitless. 
• - follow Bible Studies. A personal favourite is She Reads Truth. 
• - follow daily devotions. I really like the size, depth and accessibility of UCB's Word For You. I also really like Timothy Keller's 'My Refuge, My Strength'. 
• - having my own little Praise Party. Whether it's in total solitude in my room, crying out to God, or dancing as I sing "God's Great Dance Floor" and cook up a stir-fry. 
• - I S.O.A.P. So you pick a passage, maybe it’s the story of Daniel and the lions. You spell SOAP down your page. S stands for scripture, so you write out what the verse is. O stands for observation, so you write out what’s happening. A stands for application, so what does the passage mean to you and how are you going to apply it to your life? And P stands for prayer, so write down a prayer based on the scripture.
• - Similarly to S.O.A.P, I break every word down. Let's take the well-known verse, “The Lord is my Shepherd”. ‘The’ means the one, the only. ‘Lord’ means King and higher than everyone else. ‘Is’ means truth. ‘My’ means belonging to me, or it’s personal and intimate. ‘Shepherd’ means to look after, to take care of, it’s a job that lasts a life-time.
• - Finally, my favourite way of spending time with God is looking at a passage and then illustrating the verse or verses that stand out to me most in my journaling Bible.

I hope you enjoyed this blog! Comment below how you spend time with God!


- Rebecca