Life can be chaotic! Going to work, running errands, cleaning the house, feeding the family, ministry at church, (insert your specific thing here), so on and so forth. The list can feel like it’s never ending. Somewhere in this mix, we try to have our quiet time with God. When exactly is that supposed to happen?
In our fast-paced world, quiet time is at a premium and so we start to overthink and judge our time with God. Did I give God the right amount of time today? Is a half hour okay? Should he get more of my time? All of this questioning, makes you think that you’re not living up to some standard that doesn’t exist and this can lead to frustration and giving up on the idea of quiet time all together.
In her new book, Sacred Chaos: Spiritual Disciplines for the Live You Have, Tricia McCary Rhodes tries to find new ways to see and speak to God, right in the chaos of life. On the subject of time spent in God’s presence she writes:
I wonder what we might think if we could see it from Jesus’ perspective. There he stands at the door of our hearts, knocking, waiting, wanting us to know him as our Brother or Lover or Friend, and we get caught up in discussions about how much time is actually enough. He calls our name, intent on pursuing intimacy with us, and we breathe a sigh of relief if we manage to make it to prayer two days in a row. He died that we might know him personally-the very heart, he told us, of eternal life- and we search instead for a workable plan that will enable us to check one more thing off our Christian to-do list. There is something very wrong with this picture.
One way to avoid this, Rhodes suggests, is with the “2 minute miracle,” which is something that physical therapists use on their patients. The concept is that if a patient doesn’t want to do their prescribed therapy, the therapist suggest that when they have that urge to do nothing, they do at least 2 minutes. When the 2 minutes are up, they do the same thing all over again and consider going for 2 more minutes. The hope is, that soon enough, the patient is doing the full therapy regimen and even looking forward to doing so.
Soon you may just discover that you’ve “stumbled into the miracle of a meaningful time in Christ’s presence that makes (you) hungry for more of the same.”
Could we apply this to our prayer time? What if instead of worrying about how much time you’ve dedicated to your prayer time and feeling guilty or frustrated about it, you tell yourself you are going to spend time with God for just 2 minutes? Afterward, you could add another 2, so on and so forth. Soon you may just discover that you’ve “stumbled into the miracle of a meaningful time in Christ’s presence that makes (you) hungry for more of the same.”
So do you feel like you’re in a place in your life where you find it difficult to find time to spend with God? Challenge yourself to simply practice the 2 minute miracle over the next week. You never know how meaningful that time will be, until you try.
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