Devotional | One Way

Remember the fun Hillsong we used to sing in the mid-2000s? Or, if you’re old enough, the ’70s Jesus Movement hand signal and the big floppy Bible that went with it?

Spanning the time between those tropes came a definite mindset of teaching. ‘This is the way, walk ye in it’ (Isaiah 30:21 KJV) gets redefined every generation, but a certain amount of scripting happens when you’re young in the faith, and it’s hard to break free from that.

So, confession time: I am absolutely terrible at the way I was taught to do ‘devotions.’

It’s not that I’m not devoted. I am. I love Jesus passionately and I want everyone to fall in love with Him. It’s my WHY. But I have never had much long-term success with the formula, ‘Get up every day at 6am, read your Bible and pray for an hour.’ And, since I’ve been His since the age of 3, it has plagued me my whole life. If anyone were to ask me, ‘How much time do you spend with the Lord?’ I would assume they meant blocks of time, and feel like an abject failure as a Christian. (It probably wouldn’t occur to me to reply, ‘Actually, that’s between Him and me.’)

Abject failure, huh? How do you have a life where you’re in love with the Lord, living wholeheartedly for Him, following His ways under His grace … and still call that ‘failure’? What sort of useless metric am I applying there?

Here’s the thing: time with God does not have to be in a block. Nor does it have to be at a set o’clock. Nor in a set location where all the conditions are peachy. Paul wrote to the church, ‘Pray without ceasing.’ (1 Thessalonians 5:17 BSB). And while the NLT has ‘Never stop praying,’ the NIV has ‘Pray continually.’

It’s great being with Him, especially first thing every day, and having a regular appointment is a very fine thing. Many relationships thrive precisely because of such intentionality. It may well be that ‘get up at 6 and pray for an hour’ was a suggestion designed to bring ‘without ceasing’ into the realm of regular habit in order to make it doable. But the best I can do – with my ADHD cake-of-soap brain – is chain it to another habit to ensure it actually happens. In my case: Bible with breakfast, which I never skip. A rough pink glove (it has five tongues) in the shower caddy to remind me to pray while I wash.

But the risk with scheduling is that once the item is ticked off on the day’s TO DO list, that’ll be the end of it. I don’t want to ‘buy Him off’ with a token slice of obedience that smacks of duty, not devotion. How could He find that satisfying? How could it nourish me? It has faithfulness but not heart. So, if you’re going the ‘scheduling’ route, it may help to open with something like, ‘Lord, stay with me all day today, and let the word of Christ dwell in me richly.’ (Colossians 3:16 ESV)

I’m going to persist with breakfast reading as best I can, inconsistent or not, but I want to live my life entwined with the Lord. This is the definition of qavah we find in Isaiah 40:31 BSB, ‘Those who wait upon the Lord will renew their strength’: ‘to be stretched like a taut twined rope.’ It’s all about being alert and inseparable. And so I prefer to chatter to the Lord all day long. I’m not perfect at that, either, by the way!

You will find the best places to do that, be it the breakfast table, the shower, the car, and even the loo. (Yes, the loo. Jesus said, ‘Go into your closet.’ Where do you think a society without indoor plumbing kept the chamber pot?) Jesus was, of course, contrasting intimate, private communion with public grandstanding. ‘Teach us to pray,’ might have been disciplespeak for, ‘Take us through the Toastmasters course, so we can sound as good as those guys.’ But I don’t think Jesus meant us to confine our prayer lives to specific venues – all four gospels tell  us of Him going off by Himself outdoors to pray.

Talk to Him mentally EVERYWHERE. In the event that ideal conditions are taken away, we won’t then feel our prayer life has gone with them! We won’t tick a box and walk away. But we may need other reminder methods – like the glove, which has to be moved around a bit in case I ‘stop seeing’ it. Otherwise, opportunities – and the day – may slip away from us. With it goes not only connection, but ideas as well. Because when we give to God, He can’t help but give back.

If 15–20% of the world is neurodivergent, we can’t keep telling everyone there’s ‘one way’ to keep connected with God. Just as there’s no ‘one way’ to write (pantsers and plotters, anyone?) there’s no ‘one way’ to conduct a relationship. You extend yourself in tailored love and do what you can with what you’re made of. You do what works for the dynamic between you. You listen when things need adjusting.

So: some reframing may help. The word ‘prayer’ may be richly loaded for one person, but weighed down with tedium for someone who equates it with dry meetings or endless striving. Try calling it ‘conversation.’ ‘Being together.’ Even – stay with me here – ‘listening’! It’s not ‘we ought to pray.’ It’s ‘we get to pray.’ Having access to the Throne outside the universe is a glittering privilege. Let it sparkle!

Ditto for reading the Bible. There are places in the world where they will throw themselves in front of a delivery truck in the hope of getting a Bible! We are so blessed to have easy daily access to the immortal words of God. You don’t have to police yourself into reading a certain amount. Two verses mulled over all day can produce more closeness with God than a whole book skim-read. Trust me on this. Ask Him what He’d like to show you – and show up for it. The more I hide the Word of God in my heart, the more it opens up to me. The more regularly I read it, the more it seems to get into my bloodstream. Verses I’ve read come back to me, regardless of whether it’s what I read that day or not.

There is one way to the Father, but once you’re there, there are many ways to stay close to Him. Explore them!

What’s your favourite way of connecting with the Lord?