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I’m thinking about the spiritual disciplines and what prevents our engaging with them. I write often about daily time with God, not because it’s the only discipline or the “end all be all” but because it’s a good starting place. 

So the challenge is setting aside time to do it. I’ve said often: having Time with God isn’t hard. Setting aside time to have Time with God is hard!

Our Spring Canyon speaker told about a particular assignment in which the only time he could consistently have time with God and still get to work on time was 3:30 a.m. That reminded me of Dick Schultz, former Head of the US Olympic Committee and former President of the NCAA. He was in his late 70s when he shared his daily routine during those days: 

Every morning I allow one hour to work out, one hour for time with God, and one hour to get dressed, have breakfast and get to work. So it’s really simple. If my first meeting is at 7:00 a.m., I have to get up at 4:00! It’s not rocket science.

I often have this conversation with men, especially when a man comes to our second meeting with the confession, “I didn’t read my Bible this week.” I always say, “OK, let’s figure this out, and the conversation goes something like this: “What time do you have to leave the house for work?” “7:45.” What time do you get up in order to get out the door by 7:45?” “6:00.” “OK, if we wanted to start with 15 minutes for our time with God, we’d have to get up at 5:45, yes? And to get up at 5:45, what time would we have to go to bed the night before?” See, it’s not rocket science, but it might require missing part of last night’s game.

My voice You shall hear in the morning, O LORD; In the morning I will direct it to You, And I will look up. (Psalm 5.3, NKJV)

And rising very early in the morning, while it was still dark, he departed and went out to a desolate place, and there he prayed. (Mark 1.35, ESV)