The Devotional Pursuit

Embracing the mundane is a part of life everyone needs to come to grips with. We need normal, regular, consistent and average. As much as we like new and exciting, no one could handle that as the norm.  And so, a lot of life is just doing the same things again, being reminded of the old truths, running in the same patterns.  There is a mercy in that.  Having said that, we also cannot endure unending monotony. Just as we cannot handle constant thrill, we also cannot handle constant boredom.  There has to be growth. There has to be a new song. There has to be thrill and surprise and awe.

So when you come to your normal, regular spiritual disciplines there is the danger for them to fall into monotony. You have read the Bible and you are reading it again. You have prayed for the same things and you are praying for them again. You confess sins that you still fall into and so you confess them again.  The cliché is bearing down upon us; familiarity breeds contempt. Hopefully contempt is not what is happening, but a familiarity paired with a monotony can lead to a devotional time that is easily abandoned for the siren call of Netflix or social media.  

One solution to this is another helpful cliché: variety is the spice of life. And true enough, doing differing things can be a help. There are plenty of ways to stir up your devotional time; read a different translation, listen to an audio Bible instead of solely read, incorporate a devotional book, read in a different order, pray while walking, incorporate verses to pray as you go through your prayer list, read a commentary along with your bible reading.

These things may bring a degree of help and they are not to be discouraged. But my concern is for something better and more substantial. I don’t want to just do the same things in a different way. The goal is never just to do a devotional time or a Bible reading. The goal must always be to commune with God himself.  This is why God saved us. This is why Christ intercedes for us on the throne. This is why we have been indwelt with the Holy Spirit. We are meant to know God more; more intimately, more deeply, more genuinely, more passionately. While boredom is a part of this fallen life, God is not boring. He is gentle and powerful and satisfying and worthy of worship.  

So the call to you in this blog is to ask, seek, and knock for more. To pursue and strive and fight for a true meeting with God. Of course there are going to be times when your reading and praying are simple and nothing special happens. This is a part of normal life. But don’t let it be only that. Don’t let it stay there over and over. God is very serious about the whole-hearted seeker. God honors the thirsty and the hungry. James says it plainly, “Draw near to God and he will draw near to you.”(James 4:8)

So I would like to offer up a series of suggestions. None of them are profound. All of them encapsulate a whole-hearted pursuit.

• Pray until you’ve Prayed – This means stay there on your knees until you have met with God. Confess your hardness and coldness and ask for God’s nearness. Like Jacob, don’t let him go until he has blessed you.
• Read until you See – Stay in God’s word until something grabs you. All of scripture is God breathed, so it is all needful. Yes and amen. But you won’t get everything in one reading. This is understandable. But to get nothing is not acceptable. So keep reading until something stands up to be marveled at.
• Meditate until you Marinate – Once you see something that you know is ripe for the picking, read it again and again and again. Roll it over. Turn it around and upside down. Let it sink into your pores and get inside. Sometimes treasure chests open slowly.
• Delve until you Delight – Don’t let that verse go until you see beauty or power or direction. Or in other words, your soul is being fed and strengthened, and you are being delighted in who God is or what he provides.
• Confess until you Detest – Now that you are seeing more of God, confess sin until you hate it as you should. Not that you can get that done in a moment. But keep coming back to confess the horrid insanity of what your sin is, in light of the goodness of who he is and what he gives.

Not all of these will happen in every devotional time. But if you start leaning into the true purpose of a devotional time you will be drawing near to God and he to you. There will be blessing there that far exceeds the feeling of just accomplishing a spiritual discipline.