Tag Archives: spending time with God

August 1, 2025 · 6:01 AM

Meaningful Prayer

Sometimes when people ask me what I do for a living I tell them, “I teach the younger generations how to talk to people.” With all the means of communication we have today, we’ve lost the art of talking. We’ve gone from having meaningful conversations to text acronyms with emojis. The problem is that many of us have done the same thing in our prayer life. We’ve gone from having meaningful conversations with God to short quick prayers when we need something. Just like with people, a lack of meaningful conversations results in a shallow relationship. The truth is that our prayer life is a reflection of how much we value spending time with God. I believe God is calling us back to meaningful prayer times where we grow our relationship with Him.

Here are some verses on meaningful prayers:

1. Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving.

Colossians 4:2 ESV

2. Keep watch and pray, so that you will not give in to temptation. For the spirit is willing, but the body is weak!

Matthew 26:41 NLT

3. Don’t be pulled in different directions or worried about a thing. Be saturated in prayer throughout each day, offering your faith-filled requests before God with overflowing gratitude. Tell him every detail of your life.

Philippians 4:6 TPT

4. First of all, then, I urge that petitions (specific requests), prayers, intercessions (prayers for others) and thanksgivings be offered on behalf of all people.

1 Timothy 2:1 AMP

5. I am passionately in love with God because he listens to me. He hears my prayers and answers them. As long as I live I’ll keep praying to him, for he stoops down to listen to my heart’s cry.

Psalms 116:1-2 TPT

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February 19, 2025 · 5:40 AM

Prioritizing What Matters

John Maxwell says that if you don’t have a plan for doing what’s most important to you, you’ll spend your time reacting to what’s important to someone else. How many times have you gone to bed wondering where the day went and of all the things you still needed to get done? When we live without prioritizing the things that are important to us, the things we need to get done are sacrificed. Many times we sacrifice our quiet time with God. It starts as, “I’ll just double up tomorrow.” The next thing you know days, weeks and months go by and you’ve missed the most important thing of your day. In times like that, I have to refocus my attention on the eternal things because of the demands of the physical things. I have to put things into perspective and make my commitment to what lasts forever.

In Acts 6, the Early Church was growing by the thousands at a time. The disciples were trying to manage everything, but found themselves drowning in the administrative side of the Church. A group of non-Hebrew Jews came to them to complain that their widows weren’t receiving help. In that moment, they realized that they were spending their time on everyone else’s priorities, and were neglecting their prayer time and the preaching of the Word. They decided to delegate some priorities, like caring for widows, so they could focus on what was most important. In verse 4, they said, “But we will [continue to] devote ourselves [steadfastly] to prayer and to the ministry of the word” (AMP). The solution pleased everyone there. It’s amazing what happens when we prioritize the eternal over the physical. God rewards us for diligently seeking Him first.

Psalm 5:3 says, “In the morning, O Lord, You will hear my voice; In the morning I will prepare [a prayer and a sacrifice] for You and watch and wait [for You to speak to my heart].” David writes in this psalm about the distractions in his life and the enemies who pursue him. He prioritizes seeking God first though. He commits to meeting with God in the morning with a heart that is prepared to pray and to listen. He’s not just trying to check off a box by reading a chapter a day. He came with a prayer prepared and with time set aside to wait on the Lord in order to hear from Him. It’s a great model for all of us. Don’t just try to get through your quiet time in order to get to your day once you’ve prioritized it. Take the time to really pray and to wait for God to respond. When we seek His kingdom first, all these other priorities will fall into place and be given to you.

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September 26, 2024 · 5:30 AM

Honoring God’s Presence

I take a spiritual growth assessment a couple of times a year to get a snapshot of where I am. It helps me to visualize the different aspects of my disciplines, see where I’m gaining ground and where I’m losing ground. I’ve noticed when certain disciplines, like listening in my prayer time, are low, there are fewer experiences with God. There’s a direct correlation between my listening to His voice and experiencing His power and presence in my life. If I want more of it, I have to make time to listen instead of just talking through that time to Him about my needs. Listening is a great way to honor God’s presence.

In 1 Samuel 3, Eli was the High Priest of Israel. He was their spiritual leader, but the first verse says, “Now in those days messages from the Lord were very rare, and visions were quite uncommon” (NLT). The reason why the messages and visions were rare is because Eli had quit honoring God’s presence. He no longer slept in the tabernacle tending to the candlestick, he allowed his sons to steal God’s offerings and turned a blind eye to their promiscuity. God had enough of it and spoke to Samuel a prophetic message of how He was going to remove Eli and his sons from their positions.

In Matthew 13:57-58 it says, “Then Jesus told them, ‘A prophet is honored everywhere except in his own hometown and among his own family.’ And so he did only a few miracles there because of their unbelief.” Our belief and honor have a lot to do with how much we experience the power of God in our life. If it’s been a while since you’ve heard God’s voice or experienced Him in a real way, take a close examination of your life. Are you honoring Him in all aspects of your life? Have you been relaxed on your spiritual disciplines? When we honor God, He shows up in our life in real ways.

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Throwback Thursday is a feature I’m using to help build some margin into my schedule to pursue other ventures. Each Thursday I’ll be bringing you a previously written devotional that still speaks encouragement to us from God’s Word.

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November 22, 2023 · 5:43 AM

Soul Cravings

Years ago I owned a childcare facility. In my years there I encountered a lot of pregnant women. One of the interesting aspects of pregnancy to me was their cravings. Some craved ice, while others ice cream. Some wanted pickles, others craved peanut butter and others wanted them together. While doctors don’t know exactly what’s behind all the cravings, they’ve observed that in some cases it’s due to lack of vitamins. They also have noticed that the cravings are stronger in people who are not well nourished. Similarly, women who don’t have a balanced diet typically crave junk food. In any case, the body knows what it needs to care for and nourish the baby inside. It will do whatever it takes to get the mom to consume those nutrients.

In the Old Testament, the main way to experience God’s presence was in the Tabernacle or the Temple once it was built. People had to travel to it. That’s why David hated being on the run and away from God’s presence. He longed for the courts of the Lord and would rather have been a door keep in the house of God. On one occasion, he fled from Saul to the Negev and penned Psalm 63. While hiding out in the desert, he began to crave God’s presence. As he looked at his surroundings, he began to compare what his spirit was going through to what the land was experiencing. He wanted to be in God’s presence as much as the land in the desert wanted water.

Verse 1 says, “O God, You are my God; with deepest longing I will seek You; My soul [my life, my very self] thirsts for You, my flesh longs and sighs for You, In a dry and weary land where there is no water” (AMP). Can you sense how strong his craving for God’s presence was? If you listen to your soul, it’s crying out for that very thing. We’re all longing to be with our creator. The good news is that we no longer have to travel to Jerusalem to experience it. The problem is that when we experience this craving, we don’t always recognize it for what it is and we try to satisfy it with other things. No matter what we do though, we can’t satisfy this craving until we enter God’s presence. When is the last time you simply sat still in God’s presence without distractions? How long has it been since you satisfied your soul’s longing? Take time today to give your soul what it really craves. It is your greatest need, yet often goes unfulfilled. Don’t deprive it any longer.

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June 29, 2023 · 5:40 AM

Waiting On The Lord

If you know me, I live a very busy life. I’m constantly on the run doing things and going places. My days are fairly structured so I can fit everything in that I need to. The problem is living like that over long periods of time can be exhausting both physically and mentally. It feels like you’re burning the candle at both ends. Some days, I wake up and pray, “Can’t I just sleep in today, Lord?” What I’ve found though, is that I get refreshed and recharged as I spend time in God’s presence, waiting on Him to speak, trusting that He will come through for me and putting my hope in Him.

There are so many things in life to worry or stress about. If I’m not careful, I can let them overwhelm me and render me ineffective. The best way I’ve found to combat those is to pray without ceasing (having a dedicated prayer time, but continuing the conversation throughout my day), spending quality time in God’s Word (thinking about what God is saying, why He put that information in the Bible and how I can apply it) and spending quiet time in His presence (quieting my mind and thoughts in a place and time with no distractions). If doing these things are not a priority, life can overtake you easily and you will be exhausted, stressed and feeling like you can’t go on.

Isaiah 40:31 says, “But those who trust in the Lord will find new strength. They will soar high on wings like eagles. They will run and not grow weary. They will walk and not faint” (NLT). Every one of us experiences being weary and tired, but not every one of us experiences new strength. It takes being dedicated and intentional about your time to wait on the Lord doing the things I mentioned above. They don’t just happen. You must plan them into your day and make those times sacred so that nothing is more important. If you find yourself exhausted today from running around nonstop, find some time (30 minutes to an hour) to wait on the Lord. If you just thought, “I don’t have that kind of time in my day,” neither did I, so I started waking up an hour earlier. Waiting on the Lord has to become the most important thing to you, even more important than some sleep.

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Throwback Thursday is a feature I’m using to help build some margin into my schedule to pursue other ventures. Each Thursday I’ll be bringing you a previously written devotional that still speaks encouragement to us from God’s Word.

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March 21, 2023 · 6:30 AM

Quality Time With God

After my wife and I were engaged, my dad bought each of us “The Five Love Languages” by Gary Chapman. In the book, we read how people give love and receive love. Each of us typically want to be loved in one to two ways. The book goes through the five love languages (physical touch, words of affirmation, acts of service, receiving gifts and quality time), and it also gives you an assessment to help you know what your love language is so that you and your spouse can keep your love tanks full.

We know from Genesis that we are made in God’s image. I think what that means is that we have a lot of God’s qualities in us. We know that He shows us love, therefore He wants to be shown love. We know that John 3:16 says, “For God so loved the world that He gave…” he’s also given us the Gifts of the Spirit. I believe one of God’s major love languages is gifts. Abel showed God love by bringing Him the gift of his best lambs and it made God happy.

I also believe God’s other dominant love language is quality time. He loves to spend time with each of us. That’s why prayer is so important. I love Psalm 27. It’s loaded with good stuff. In verse 8 it says, “My heart has heard you say, ‘Come and talk with me.’ And my heart responds, ‘Lord, I am coming’” (NLT). I hear God saying, “Come spend some quality time with me,” to each of us. Do we respond like David?

It’s important to note that we often show love in the way we want to receive it. To keep a relationship healthy, we have to learn to show it in the language of the person we are in a relationship with. Quality time and gifts may not come naturally to you, so you’ll have to work at it. Take some time today to spend some quality time with God. I know you’re reading this as a part of that, but take some time to just sit in His presence so you can hear what He has to say. You’ll be surprised by how your relationship with God changes.

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January 26, 2023 · 5:30 AM

Intimately Knowing God

One of the things I’ve loved since I was a kid is trivia games, especially Bible trivia. My parents couldn’t afford to send us to camp when we were young, so they took us to every Vacation Bible School in town. I got a head full of knowledge about the Bible from going to all of those. When you combine that with my ability to memorize things, I won a lot of prizes when it came to Bible Trivia. The only downside to having all that knowledge is that for years, I thought I knew God because I knew a lot about Him. However, knowing about someone and knowing them are two very different things.

When David was old, he was preparing to hand over the kingdom to Solomon. Like any parent, I’m sure he saw great qualities in his son. He wanted to make sure that his son didn’t just rely on who he had heard God was, but wanted him to intimately know Him the way he did. In 1 Chronicles 28, David was giving Solomon instruction for ruling, for building the Temple and for living well. In verse 9, he said, “Learn to know the God of your ancestors intimately. Worship and serve him with your whole heart and a willing mind. For the Lord sees every heart and knows every plan and thought. If you seek him, you will find him. But if you forsake him, he will reject you forever” (NLT).

There is so much wisdom in that one verse, but I want us to simply focus on that first part today. Learn to know God intimately. It’s good to learn about Him, but it’s more important to learn to know Him intimately. Knowledge about God comes from Scripture, but knowing Him comes from spending time in prayer and being still in His presence. All of the Bible is about this one thing: God wants an intimate relationship with you and He’s willing to do whatever it takes to make that happen. The problem is it takes two to have a relationship. God has done His part. Will you do yours and spend some alone time with Him today listening to His voice?

Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash

Throwback Thursday is a feature I’m using to help build some margin into my schedule to pursue other ventures. Each Thursday I’ll be bringing you a previously written devotional that still speaks encouragement to us from God’s Word.

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August 18, 2021 · 5:44 AM

Alone With God

I was talking with a friend recently about how technology has been both a blessing and a curse. On the blessing side, we have so much information, entertainment and communication in the palm of our hand. Never before in the history of the world have we had such access, but along with that comes the curse. We’ve lost the ability to be alone to think deeply and to pray. We’re constantly interrupted by it going off, lighting up or us using it out of habit. In times past, people had the ability to process, break down and understand the information they had because they had the ability to truly be alone with their thoughts. That ability also provided them with opportunities to be alone with God.

Exodus 3:1 says, “Now Moses was keeping the flock of Jethro (Reuel) his father-in-law, the priest of Midian; and he led his flock to the west side of the wilderness and came to Horeb (Sinai), the mountain of God” (AMP). Notice how Moses was in the wilderness alone. It was then that he noticed the burning bush. Verse 3-4 says, “So Moses said, ‘I must turn away [from the flock] and see this great sight—why the bush is not burned up.’ When the Lord saw that he turned away [from the flock] to look, God called to him from the midst of the bush and said, ‘Moses, Moses!’ And he said, ‘Here I am.’” Moses turned away from his distraction, and when he did, God called out to him and met with him.

You will even find this pattern with Jesus. Luke 5:16 says, “But Jesus Himself would often slip away to the wilderness and pray [in seclusion].” How often do you slip away into seclusion, away from all distractions, and pray? It’s difficult in today’s world. We must be intentional about it. Our minds will give us the fear of missing out or of being out of connection with others, but the truth is that those fears have made us miss out on encounters with God and out of connection with Him. Jesus made it a practice to break away from the crowd and noise of life to be alone with God. With all of our connectedness today, we must be even more intentional about it. God is waiting to meet you, but you must turn away from the things that distract you first and get alone with Him.

Photo by Volodymyr Hryshchenko on Unsplash

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May 4, 2021 · 5:58 AM

Becoming People Of Prayer

How much time do you spend in prayer each day? I once read that D.L. Moody spent up to 8 hours a day in prayer. That has always challenged me. I’ve been on church trips where the men would take a two day trip to spend them in fasting and prayer. There would be times when you would see people nod off. When they woke up, they would snap their head back up and say, “Amen!” On those trips I learned how hard it was to spend a lot of time in prayer, even with prayer a focus each hour. It’s also where I learned that prayer was a conversation with God. Can you imagine an 8 hour one way conversation? It was then that I learned to tune into God’s voice by giving Him time to speak in my prayer time.

You can’t read the Gospels without seeing how much time Jesus devoted to prayer. Sometimes He would spend an entire night in prayer, alone with God. The disciples were intrigued by how much time He prayed and even asked Him to teach them how to pray. They saw that prayer was important to Jesus and were challenged to pray more. Prayer became a cornerstone of the Early Church. It actually was birthed from a ten day prayer meeting. Can you imagine praying for ten days straight? I’m convinced that that kind of prayer is the missing element in today’s Church. We must return to being people of prayer. We have to make spending time with God a priority bot privately and corporately if we want to become effective in this world.

Colossians 4:2 says, “Be persistent and devoted to prayer, being alert and focused in your prayer life with an attitude of thanksgiving” (AMP). Have we lost our persistence in prayer? Have we made prayer a priority? It’s not too late to return to this foundational principle of our faith. I don’t know if God is asking you to give Him 8 hours, but you can start with at least 8 minutes. We need to have time set aside each day where we spend it in prayer without being interrupted. We need a place to meet with God where we won’t fall asleep or have distractions that will cause our mind to wander. I believe God is calling you and I back to being people of prayer. Not just rote prayers over meals and bedtime, but real conversations with God. He’s waiting for us. Will we make spending time with Him a priority? Only you can answer that.

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December 9, 2019 · 5:40 AM

The Jesus Effect

One of the first rules you learn as a child is that you become like those you hang out with. Someone once said, “Show me your friends, and I’ll show you, you.” We tend to take on attributes, accents and habits of the people we spend time with. I read a study once that showed how kids don’t take on their parent’s accents. They take on the ones of their friends. Think about the people you are around the most. Good or bad, they’ve had an affect on the things you like, the places you go and even the foods you eat. They have changed you as much as you have changed them.

In the book of Acts, the disciples went around preaching and healing people the way Jesus did. They went to the Temple to pray and to educate others on the Scriptures. As they approached the gate one day, a beggar who couldn’t walk asked them for money. Instead of money, they brought him to his feet healed. The religious leaders threw them in jail for it. As they were being questioned the next day about it, Peter spoke up and told them it was done through the power of Jesus’ name. Acts 4:13 says, “The council members were astonished as they witnessed the bold courage of Peter and John, especially when they discovered that they were just ordinary men who had never had religious training. Then they began to understand the effect Jesus had on them simply by spending time with him” (TPT).

Think about that. They saw the effect Jesus had on them simply by spending time with Him. Just like you and your friends have an affect on each other’s lives, our lives are affected by spending time with Jesus. The more time you spend with Him, the greater the effect He will have on your life. We, like the disciples, will become more like Him each and every day. You can be an ordinary person and have an extraordinary change in your life, and in the lives of others, by spending time in prayer, reading the Bible and resting in His presence. Just like anything in the Bible, we have to be the ones to take the first step. The change happens after we make the time to spend with Him.

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