It's Better Than You Think

You think your quiet time sucks, right? You think that because of how long you’ve been walking with the Lord, the daily time you spend with Him reading Scripture or praying ought to be way more _____ than it is. And look, I don’t know what word to put in the blank in that last sentence - fruitful, consistent, amazing, emotional - whatever, but there’s some adjective that your devotional life lacks and needs, right? 

Well, what if it doesn’t? I’m going to float an idea past you and I’m not asking you to completely buy into it, but just hear me out on it and open yourself up to the possibility that it could be true, okay? Here goes: your quiet time is already better than you think. It’s not that you need to overhaul what you’re doing or add a new element to make it better, it’s just that you need to relax your expectations about it and enjoy it more.  

Here’s the thing: most people truly believe and expect that when they sit down to have some time with the Lord in prayer or Bible reading or journaling or whatever, the foundations of the world will shift, Heaven will split open, angel choirs will sing and they will have a massive, emotional and spiritual breakthrough. They expect to feel better about all of their problems, have epiphanies about their confusions, be completely galvanized to face all of their temptations with impenetrable resolve and weep with spiritual joy. We think having a quiet time should feel like Moses did on Mount Sinai every time. 

The truth is, it won’t always be like that. Sometimes it might. When you hang out with Jesus, you will sometimes feel better about your problems and get answers for your confusions. Sometimes you will feel strengthened to face the day and you may even have an emotional moment, but that won’t always be the case. Sometimes you’ll just read something, pray some stuff and it won’t feel like much. The thing you need to remember is this: the point of hanging out with Jesus isn’t to secure for yourself a spiritual high. No, the point of hanging out with Jesus is simply to hang out with Him. He wants a friendship with you. Sometimes being together is going to be amazing and sometimes it will feel commonplace, but do it. Go hang out with Him. Go be friends. Relax your expectations and just be around Jesus a little bit every day, by yourself. That’s doing more than you think it is.