It is widely believed that Christians should read
daily
devotions in order to become or remain spiritually mature.
While this idea may be oversold as it is reflection on God’s
Word and not merely reading a Bible passage or someone
else’s thoughts that brings about spiritual maturity, there
is nonetheless a real benefit to doing devotions. If we
didn’t believe this, we wouldn’t have set up a site devoted
to devotions.
Despite the benefit of doing a daily
devotional, there are many reasons that Christians give for
not doing devotions. Here are a few of them. And reasons why
these aren’t good reasons for avoiding devotions. And before
you get offended, we are all guilty of these from time to
time.
- They are too busy. Everybody is busy whether
it is work, picking up kids from practice, or taking
care of a house. Everybody has stuff that needs to be
done and more stuff that they want to do. If we are too
busy for God, why should He have time for us when we
come calling on Him?
- They have bad priorities. This relates
directly to being busy. The truth is that we make time
for what is our highest priority. Work is a priority
because we need money to live on. Taking kids to
practice may be a priority because we want them to be
involved in such activities. Cleaning the house may be a
priority because we want things to look nice or we want
our spouse to stop nagging. Regardless what the priority
is, we make time for it. If we felt that doing devotions
was a priority, we’d make time for it.
- They manage their time poorly. Very few people
have their day so packed that there is literally nothing
more that they can squeeze into it. God did not intend
for us to work every waking moment and if your schedule
really is that packed, it is indicative of other
problems. The truth of the matter is that usually people
waste time on Facebook or watching pointless garbage on
tv. This is our choice to make but most people say that
they don’t have time when what they really mean is that
they refuse to make time. They are too busy because
American Idol is on and it will require two hours of
their time.
As I said, we all do these things. We claim to be too
busy when we really just want to do other things or are a
victim of our wastefulness. What we need to set devotions as
one of our priorities in life. Maybe there really are only
five minutes that you can spend on devotions. Well, set
aside those five minutes and make it a priority to focus on
God for those five minutes. Our excuses are often lousy and
we need to stop making them. This is harsh but it’s the
truth. Now is the time to set aside time for God.
