The other day I got a note from a good friend and fellow disciple maker asking this question about someone he’s working with:

Has been a believer for 2 years, but is so busy with school & now work, I may need to update my “software” if he is going to grow spiritually. Any suggestions?

For better or worse, here is my answer. What do you think?

What’s the minimum? We’re all busy, but we find time to do what’s important. I often use Matthew 4.4 in teaching daily time with God: “Most of us find time to eat every day although I suppose that one could dash out the door without eating breakfast.” Then I follow that with Romans 13.14, “Put on the Lord Jesus Christ…” But I use the Message: “Get up and get dressed!” I say, ‘You might go to work having skipped breakfast, but no one shows up at work naked…Sorry I didn’t have time to get dressed this morning.’”

I was working with a man named Steve once, and he showed up for our second meeting and said, “I’m sorry. I didn’t read this week like you told me to.” So we just worked through his schedule:

– What time do you have to get up in order to be out the door on time?

– So can we back that up 15 minutes so you’ll have time to read?

– And what time do you have to go to bed so you can get up 15 minutes earlier?

I often share that any discipline can go through these stages: drudgery, discipline, delight. Exercise is a good example. As I was sharing this with a group of men, Steve was there. He said, “May I say something? I went through this very progression. Daily time with God was pure drudgery at first. Then I saw the benefits of it and it became a necessary discipline for me. Finally, I came to delight in it. It took two years to reach that point.”

One more thing to help get him started: “You won’t want to do something until you’ve done it when you didn’t want to.” Again comparing exercise, you could answer test questions on the benefits of exercise, but until you’ve experienced those benefits for yourself, you won’t want to exercise. So you have to start when you don’t want to. Compare Hebrews 12.11.

I hope some of that is helpful. The minimum? Anyone can have a 15-minute quiet time and memorize one verse/week. Max Barnett, a long-time Navigator-trained Southern Baptist pastor (he’s 85 now, I think) advocates one verse/week. You work really hard the first day until you can say the verse. Then you review it every day for 8 weeks. The second week, you do another verse, etc. So your daily review consists of only 8 verses. 

Let me know how it goes.

Whom shall he teach knowledge? and whom shall he make to understand doctrine? them that are weaned from the milk, and drawn from the breasts. For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little. (Isaiah 28.9, 10, KJV)