Wake up in the morning. Eat breakfast. Go to class. Eat lunch. Go to work. Go back to class. Do homework. Eat dinner. Go to sleep. Repeat. That has been everyday of my year so far, and I know that many of you can relate. We live in a an extremely busy world that leaves little to no time to spare. Unfortunately the time we dedicate to God is only what we can spare; we do it with our time, and very often we also do it with our money. How can our spiritual life survive our busy schedule? What must we do in order to sustain a vibrant relationship with God as we walk through the business of this world?
1. Give God all of it.
I have heard so many times preachers say stuff like "Make God the first thing everyday!" and if you go to church regularly you have heard it also. While this is not necessarily a bad advice, it makes it easy to compartmentalize our life and give God just the first hours of our day, but we completely take Him out out of the rest. One of the best things we can do is to give Him all. I mean it! All of it! God needs to stop being the first item in our list and He needs to become our list. If we look at spirituality in a holistic way even in the business of life we will be able to glorify God, and it will enrich our relationship with Him. The Bible says:
"So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God." (1 Corinthians 10:31)
2. The Small Meals Principle.
People who are really into fitness often advice that instead of having three or two big meals everyday, one should try do do 5 or 6 smaller meals. Very often our fast-paced life will force us to do this in our spiritual walk. Sometimes creating the discipline of reading the Word of God during the day in multiple, small, chunks of time can do more for our spiritual walk than a rushed thirty minutes in the morning. We have the blessing of easy access to the Bible in most mobile devices. It helps to set reminders to pray or read small portions of Scripture before accessing social media. By doing this not only do we open a window for God to speak to you in the context of your day, but also keep us from starving spiritually.
3. Make the Sabbath count!
If you are a Seventh-day Adventist, the Sabbath can be, ironically enough, one of the busiest day of the week. It is important we give the Sabbath back to God. This day was meant to be an oasis of spiritual refreshment and not a lets-have-every-possible-church-related-meeting day. Not only have we taken the day from God but we have attached to it all of these taboos of "dos" and "don'ts" that have zero Biblical support. As a result we make a burden out of a blessing. Jesus said regarding the Sabbath:
"Then he said to them, "The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath." (Mark 2:27)Above all things we must remember that our spirituality is all about keeping a closer relationship with Jesus everyday. It is a mistake to systematize or attempt to create specific "one-size-fits-all" plans to improve one's relationship with God. The truth is that this is a very organic process, and while guidelines and principles are a starting point, the relationship each of us has with God is unique in its own way. The challenge is to not conform to where we are and grow closer to Him as we walk through this world.
