There is a lot of discussion among Christian’s these days about how to draw closer to God. Once we get past the belief that our spiritual growth is something God wants us to ignore, we start asking the question “what is my part”? What is the best way to design a personal devotional practice that works for me and honors God?
The answers to that question are abundant, and confusing. So many teachers are available. They celebrate the devotional practices that work best for them. It is a wonderful thing to have an so much information and coaching in this essential area.
But ultimately, the path you choose is your own. The Spirit knows what you need, and what you are ready for. As you begin to design your practice, He will guide you in what is working and what is not. He will coach you on when to step forward and when to rest where you are.
Create a Devotional Practice that Works for You
So it is time to just start moving and see where God leads you. As a very wise pastor once told me, it is easier for God to redirect someone who is moving, than to get someone moving who has stopped. So start moving forward, and let the Spirit direct you as you go.
Whether you are completely new to following devotional practices or have been doing the same thing for a while, take some time to explore options that other pilgrims on the path are using. You can then design your own devotional and prayer pattern that works for you.
My desire for you is that you learn the joy that comes from a steady, humble walk with God, and the spiritual freedom to experiment as He leads you forward on the path.
But here is a warning:
“Anyone who imagines he can simply begin meditating without praying for the desire and the grace to do so, will soon give up. But the desire to meditate, and the grace to begin meditating, should be taken as an implicit promise of further graces.”
Thomas Merton, Spiritual Direction and Meditation
Before you design your devotional practice, you MUST ask the Spirit to join you in the planning and in the doing. These are not disciplines that we place on ourselves to become spiritually strong. They are practices that set us in a quiet place before the Father, so He can work in us as He chooses.
Choose The Time(s)
The first decision in your Devotional Practice design is to select a time to focus on spiritual things. Although it is true that we should “pray without ceasing” (1 Thess. 5:17), we also need a specific time set aside just for our focus on God. I have found it is almost impossible to remember to pray throughout the day, if I have not taken intentional time to fill my mind and heart with the sacred.
There are a couple of questions to ponder. First, how much time do you want to start with. The second question is when do you want to schedule that time?
How Much Time Should I Take for My Devotional Practice?
If you are new to this, it is probably best to start with 20-30 minutes. This gives you time to settle into a comfy chair, open with a simple prayer, read, and close with prayer for your day and for those around you. Below, I have outlined some ideas for how to spend that time. The first goal is to just get into this pattern. Don’t expect a miraculous visitation. Just expect to offer your commitment to this time as a thanks offering. This is our response to the love He has already provided.
Over time, I have found that an hour in the morning suits me really well, with some more extended time perhaps on weekend mornings. You are likely to find, as I have, that when the time is done, you are sorry to go. So I have added a couple of practices that I carry with me throughout the day. But more on that later.
When Should I Schedule My Devotional Time?
First, you do need to schedule it. Just like anything else in life, if we don’t make an intentional plan to do something, it just does not get done.
When the Morning Works Best
Most people will recommend you start with the morning, as a first thing. Jesus modeled this for us.
Jesus prayed in the morning – a great deal before dawn.
Mark 1:35
There are several reasons why this works. First, it is the time we most control. We control when we get up in the morning. The rest of the day can easily get away from us. We can often find a way to get to bed a half hour earlier so we can get up a half hour earlier.
The most important reason, to me, for preferring the morning, is that my time with God sets the tone for the rest of the day. Often the Spirit will prompt me for something I need to say to a friend, or an attitude I need to work on. That is fresh in my heart as I continue into the day.
Another reason people often mention for starting the day with your devotional practices, that we offer God the best, prime time, when we are thinking most clearly.
When the Evening Works Best
This is true for many people. But there are definitely some people that are permanent night owls. So give yourself some grace. If evening is better for you, and you can find a quiet place, perhaps after others have gone to bed, that works too. I would suggest, however, that you leave yourself some notes in the evening, so when you do get up, you can spend just a few minutes saying Good Morning to your Heavenly Father and setting your heart on Him for the rest of the day.
Something more to consider about setting the time. I have been hugely blessed by setting two times. One longer time for deeper prayer and study, and a separate shorter time for prayer. For me that means a longer morning, to get my marching orders for the day and set the tone. Then I spend just a few minutes as I head to bed, to thank God for the day, and bring any issues to Him that might need to be addressed.
Assemble the Pieces of your Devotional Practice
In the following sections, I have described devotional practices that have been used by Christians for hundreds of years. Some are more modern variations.
I will say, though, that some of these practices are more essential than others. The first section lists those that are foundational. I highly recommend that you have created a devotional practice that includes these, before experimenting with the others.
Over time, you will find some areas growing and others being less meaningful. Let that be your clue to re-evaluate and adjust. As always, pray for the Spirit to lead you in these decisions. Prayers for grace and growth.
It’s All About Prayer
You may expect that prayer is a part of a devotional practice. But in truth, the entire practice is just variations in prayer. We pray to ask God to participate with us. We pray for His guidance as He highlights parts of scripture. We pray for others and ourselves. Our worship is prayer. Our Thanksgiving is prayer. Ultimately, our life is a prayer of devotion and obedience.
I have heard it said that reading the Bible is God speaking to you, and prayer is you speaking to God. That is really much too simple. God certainly speaks through the Bible. He also speaks through His creation, and through our daily experience of life, if we choose to listen.
Prayer is Listening and Speaking
But prayer, true prayer, is as much about listening as it is about speaking. We ask God questions. We ask for faith and confidence in Him. We ask Him to help us in obedience. And sometimes were are just quiet to allow Him to bless us.
I could go on and on about prayer, but for now, I just ask that you expand your ideas of what it is. It is not all about us talking to God. Prayer is also about us being receptive to Him.
Essential Elements of a Beginning Devotional Practice
Here are essential building blocks to designing your spiritual practice. Granted this is my opinion. But it is based on my own experience as well as that of the sacred teachers throughout the centuries.
You will find that various teachers use different terms for these.
The essential elements are
- worship and praise,
- confession
- meditation,
- petition,
- thanksgiving.
These are the core practices. Over time, they will begin to flow throughout your day. All other practices are really just variations and expansions of these five. So let’s look at them first and in a little more detail.
Worship/Praise
Technically, worship and praise mean slightly different things. But in your devotional practice, you really cannot separate the two. We praise God by repeating back to Him what we know to be true. He is Powerful. He knows everything. He is wise. He is loving. He is just.
As we recite this knowledge back to Him, we often are just amazed. How is it that this God who is everything, would be so interested in me coming to Him. And yet, He is.
Why does God require that we worship Him? Does He really have a weak ego that requires us to support Him? No, of course not.
But we need to worship, because we need to align our hearts and minds, our priorities and goals, with Him. And if we don’t think He is amazing, we just aren’t going to do that.
So we start our time with God in worship and praise.
Confession
My prayer really needs to begin with truth. The more honest I can be with God and myself, the deeper will be the healing. I am not telling God anything he doesn’t already know.
In fact, we can ask God to show us what he knows about us. Just as a drug addict starts by acknowledging their addiction, we acknowledge our failings. We ask for God’s forgiveness. We ask for the power to forgive ourselves as well.
Having done that, we can ask for the power to move forward, to improve, to grow. Confession is a beautiful part of walking the path of joy.
Meditation
The practice of meditation has been taught by many faith traditions over the centuries. It is even recommended as a “spiritual” practice for people who have no beliefs in things outside of the physical world.
There are huge differences however, between Christian Meditation and eastern or secular meditation.
The primary difference is the purpose of the mediation. In Eastern meditation, the goal is to “become one with the cosmic consciousness” and lose ourselves in the great common cloud. On the other hand, secular meditation is an exercise of focusing on the good things in life, in order to reduce the negativity in our minds.
The Purpose of Christian Meditation
Neither of these is the purpose of Christian meditation. It is a prayer, an intentional choice to focus on sacred truth and bring it into our daily life. As Richard Foster so eloquently teaches:
So it is with Meditative Prayer. The truth being meditated upon passes from the mouth into the mind and down into the heart, where through quiet rumination—regurgitation, if you will—it produces in the person praying a loving, faith-filled response.
Richard Foster – Prayer – Chapter 13
The art of meditation is a lifelong learning adventure. But we need to start somewhere. Here is the place I begin. In my morning reading, I choose a small passage. For example, a story about Nicodemus, or the woman at the well from the Gospels. I then focus on a phrase, or a conversation. Next I ask God to show me what it means in my life. I often sit for several minutes just turning that phrase or that story around to see all of its pieces. This is, of course, just a beginning. But the beginning is a very good place to start!
Prayer of Petition
The next essential practice is the “asking”. I love to place this prayer after the prayers of worship and meditation. Worship helps us to align our priorities with God’s priorities. This guides our requests. Meditation brings often brings to mind things that need work, so this is a great time to ask God to give us power to change.
The most important thing I needed to learn about Petition, was that God actually does things in response to my prayer, that He would not otherwise do. He wants us to be partners with Him by caring enough to pray and to ask. He wants us to know that He is the provider of all good things, both for ourselves and for those we love.
Our prayer of asking, is how we connect with His power in our lives, and pass that power to those we are praying for.
Thanksgiving
We close our devotional practice with Thanksgiving. We thank God that He took joy in our worship, guided our meditations, heard our requests. Then we thank Him for anything we can think of.
The secular world has somehow become enamored with the word “Gratitude”. And in truth, just recognizing the good in our lives does help us be more relaxed people. But it is hard to have Gratitude when you don’t know who to thank. Mother Earth? The Great Spirit? Who exactly are we grateful to?
But we know the answer to that question. We thank God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit for their active participation in our lives. And with that we can go forward into our day, knowing Who walks with us.
Additional Elements to Consider
The following devotional practices can be considered once you get the basics in place.
Study
Bible Study is quite a bit different from Meditation on scripture. In study we use our whole minds to dig deep into the word of God. Learning about the context and the sentence structure of scripture can often bring tremendous insight that a light touch in scripture cannot provide. This is the first piece to add when you are ready to expand your devotional practices.
Journaling
Journaling takes many forms. For some it is just a record of what bible passage you read that day. Others record anything that they learned from their devotional time. Some write daily diaries. Some write extensive discussions on topics they are lead to consider.
For many people, the centerpiece of the journal is a record of people they pray for, and a record of the answers. This is a great faith builder when you are wondering if God is listening.
Memorization
Bible Memory is commanded in scripture. Knowing scripture by heart is an incredible aid to my morning worship. I am working on learning more of the Psalms for this purpose. Other scriptures come back to mind as we need them, for encouragement, for evangelism, and just to remind us how amazing God is as we go through the day. Read this article for a detailed description of how I blend meditation and memorization into a single practice. This allows meditation to support memorization and memorized verses to support meditation.
Fasting
Biblical fasting is different from the current trend of fasting for your health. It is a way to create separation between you and the physical desires that seem to control us.
Simplicity
The practice of simplicity is a decision to remove the clutter and distraction from our lives, to allow us to focus on the things that matter. It is a continuous choice that allows us to re-align our priorities.
Solitude
Solitude is a conscious choice to get away from people and devices and choose to hear ourselves think, and God speak. Your daily prayer time is a start of this practice. Many people take a few minutes out during the day. I love taking a couple of days away from family and work and go hide in the mountains, so I can read and think.
Elements to Carry You Through The Day
Word of the Day
I love to write on a card a passage or even just a word from my morning time. I take that word with me all day. When I get a break, stuck in traffic or waiting in line, or just a pause in the action of life, I can refer to it and continue the conversation with God about that topic.
Memorization Review
I listed Memorization above as a discipline we need to build into our practice. But the review of the selected scripture happens throughout the day. This is often a replacement for the “word of the day” described above. You choose.
Praying Scripture
Often a scripture makes you aware of a need in your life or someone else’s. Perhaps it is promise that you just don’t see happening. Now is the time to pray that scripture. Rephrase it as a request. It is backed up by a direct promise. Does it apply to you? Ask God to help you see what He wants to do with that passage continually pray it back to Him. You will see powerful results.
Scripture Writing
A great way to get a really focused at praying scripture is to write it out. In this day of keyboarding, writing with a pen has become archaic.
But there is something very physical, very focusing about writing out a passage of scripture on a piece of paper. It slows you down, it helps you really see it.
For short passages this is also a way to start to learn the verse. I often write a verse out 3-4 times or more to start the memory process. Write it in phrases, the way you will learn it. This is a great way to slow down and truly hear what the Word of God is saying to you.
Build Your Own Devotional Practice
I have to say, in conclusion, that choosing to spend time every day, in a quiet place with God, is going to change your life. Meeting Jesus at the time of your salvation started you on the path to the amazing joy of walking with God.
But Salvation is the entry ticket; you have just walked through the gate onto the path.
To truly grasp what God is offering, to truly participate in the Kingdom of God, we must spend time with Him. The gracious Father chooses to make us partners with Him in our spiritual growth.
So don’t worry too much about where to start, just start. Use these ideas as a beginning.
