Devotionals

My brother's blog post on daily devotionals really challenged me. I have to admit that after finals, I've been slacking off on my Bible reading and morning devotionals. It's kind of ironic because I'm consistent with my quiet times while school is in session (when I'm busy), but when I have all the free time in the world, I become lazy and start forgetting to even consider reading the Bible. It's odd because every time I didn't read the Bible before class, my whole day felt off too. It just didn't feel right because it wasn't consistent with my daily routine. But now that I'm on summer break, I wake up late, go straight to my computer to check emails and facebook, eat breakfast and wash up, and then go straight to my day.

My brother also mentioned that one of the key things that helps him be diligent in his devotionals is the mere attitude you approach it with. If you approach it like it's a chore or an obligation, then that's exactly what it's going to be. When you approach it like it's your way of easing your own consciousness, or your refuge when you're facing difficulties, then that's all it's going to be. I often found myself in the latter, and hence, led to the inconsistent quiet times. School is filled with uncertainties and difficulties, and to cope with them, I turned to quiet times (which isn't a bad thing). But when summer came and no worries and difficulties were in my life, I stopped reading the World altogether.

In hindsight, devotionals should be something more than a place of refuge. Devotionals need to be habitual. It literally needs to be apart of us. It needs to be something that we do everyday without even crossing our minds like brushing our teeth, sleeping, eating. We shouldn't have to even think about doing devotionals because we always need God. When we're thinking about or debating about whether we should do devotionals or not, we are actually challenging and doubting God's power and holiness because we are unsure of God's capability of taking care of us; or we simply think we can do His job better.

My brother put it best: devotionals are the easiest and the hardest thing to do in the world.

-Simon