In this post, I want to share a list of ideas for
incorporating Bible reading into your
day. Not all of them will be relevant to
your circumstances, but I am hoping that a few of them might prove
helpful. Some are strategies that I have
used, and others have come from my reading over the years.
The most difficult times to fit Bible reading—or any reading, for that matter—into your
day is when you have young children at home.
Here are some ideas specific to parents with little ones:
1. Lead
everyone in your family to have a devotional time at once. Give your small children Bible storybooks and
picture books, along with notebooks they can scribble their own “notes”
in. For some kids, a little spiral
notebook feels like a special treasure instead of the usual big sheets of
coloring paper they are used to.
Set a timer, and let your children know, “When the timer goes ‘ding,’ I
will read a story to you, but for now, it is everyone’s quiet time to spend
with God.”
You will have to explain, model, and reinforce the behaviors you expect
during this time just as you would when teaching any other appropriate
behaviors for a given time and place.
2. Even if
your children have outgrown naptime, you can still have them observe a “quiet
time,” when they are expected to read, draw, or play quietly in their
rooms.
Again, you will have to explain, model, and reinforce the behaviors you
expect during this time. “Quiet time”
might not be all that quiet and Bible-directed while you are reinforcing that
your children cannot keep popping out of their rooms to ask you a question or
look for a different toy. Use the same
sorts of methods you employ to keep them in their rooms at night, and after some
time you may find some fairly uninterrupted periods of morning or afternoon
time for your devotions.
3. Work with your husband to find a task that he
can do with the kids on his own to free you up for a devotional time. Perhaps he can brush teeth, give baths,
oversee the putting on of pajamas, and read the nighttime books while you have
your quiet time, and then you can come in for prayer, tuck ins, and
kisses. Or he could take them to the
park, the library, or (even better!) the grocery store once a week so you can
have an uninterrupted hour to yourself.
4. Let your children see you read the Bible. You don’t have to hide yourself away for
devotional time, as long as you can find a way to be undisturbed. It sets a great example, and makes them curious.
Here are some suggestions that could work for anyone at any
point in her life:
1. Read just a little before you go to sleep at
night, or in the morning before anyone else is awake, depending on your own
sleeping habits.
2. Find a time when you would usually pick up a
magazine or scroll through Facebook (your lunch break at work, perhaps?), and
pick up the Bible instead.
3. Keep a calendar of your Quiet Time reading to
mark your progress. Elizabeth George
includes a Quiet Times Calendar in the back of her book, A Woman After God’s Own Heart.
You can shade in a square for each day you spend some time with
God. My daughter has a similar chart to
this for her kindergarten class, so she can mark off every fifteen minute
increment of reading she does each day.
Such a visual record may encourage you to be more faithful to your
commitment.
4.
Tell other people about your intention to spend
time in the Bible each day. Knowing that
they will ask you about your progress may offer additional incentive to keep up
your commitment.
“What happens when you and I do slip away to be with God in study and prayer?” asks Elizabeth
George in A Woman After God’s Own Heart.
“We receive,” she writes.
“We take in. We are nurtured and
fed…I call this time with God ‘the great exchange.’ Away from the world and
hidden from public view, I exchange my weariness for His strength, my weakness
for His power, my darkness for His light, my problems for His solutions, my
burdens for His freedom, my frustrations for His peace, my turmoil for His
calm, my hopes for His promises, my afflictions for His balm of comfort, my
questions for His answers, my confusion for His knowledge, my doubt for His
assurance, my nothingness for His awesomeness, the temporal for the eternal,
and the impossible for the possible.”
Wow! I think it’s clear that we get the best end
of the bargain in this exchange, thanks be to God!
