A question that mentor moms get asked a lot is, ”What is one thing you would have done differently as a mom when your kids were little?” One thing is hard because there are many. If I could go back in time and talk to myself, however, I would plead with myself to use what little free time I could carve out to spend time with the Lord in His Word. I believed a lot of lies that kept me from doing that when I was a young mom, and on the chance some of those haven’t changed, I am going to share a couple with you.
I was tired. That is NOT the lie. The lie I believed was that other things could give me lasting refreshment. Psalm 1 says of the blessed man, “his delight is in the law of the Lord and on His law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither.” My leaves were withering. I needed to get planted by those streams of water. Did I need sleep, a shower, a break from my kids? Yes!!! Was any of that at the complete exclusion of time in the Word going to give me lasting refreshment? No, it was not. I was like the woman at the well in John 4. She tried to find lasting refreshment both in worldly pursuits (she had had 5 husbands and was currently in a relationship), and in good pursuits (drawing water), and yet she was thirsty. This is what the Lord said to her, “whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” (John 4:14) Jesus is the answer, and we find Him in His Word.
But before you heap guilt upon yourself and add another thing to your huge to-do list, let me tell you another lie I believed. I believed that to spend time with the Lord in His word it had to look a certain way: total silence, a half hour of dedicated time with 6 other resources available to help me study and my pretty marking pens. I LOVE to study the Bible that way, and I did get to do that in later seasons when the 2 hour quiet time stage arrived, but that was not always my reality. I am going to say something scandalous. You do not have to read through the entire Bible in a year. You can take longer. {gasp} Time with the Lord in His Word can be a 15 second verse read before you hop in the shower and then meditate on it while you wait for the conditioner to do its thing. It is saying that verse around the house all day while doing all the things. It is resting your phone with your bible app on top of the nursing baby and maybe even reading it aloud to them. Read a chapter and ask yourself, “What did I learn about God?” “What did I learn about man?” “How can that apply to me?” Maybe you even make a commitment with a friend to read the same chapters and then communicate with each other on a regular basis about what you have been learning? Meditating day and night is finding ways to have the Word be woven into an already full life. (Deut 6:7) I have found that time in the Word only makes you hungry for more.
If you are not spending any time reading the Bible I encourage you to think about what your obstacle is. Do you believe other things will be more beneficial? Is it a question of priority? Do you need to change your vision of what time in the Bible looks like right now? Trust the Lord that if you seek Him first He will supply all of your other needs. (Matt 6:33) Notice the word is “first.” Please DO NOT give up sleep and showering.
– Kristi
Real Moms. Real Life. 