05.01.20 - Time Spent
How do you spend your day? Let me be more specific... how much time do you spend on Instagram? Playing video games? Texting? Playing sports? On the Internet? With your friends? Watching TV? How much time have you carved out of the day to spend with God? We say our lives are so busy that it just isn't easy to find time to spend alone with God daily. Wrong. We all have the time - the real issue is how we choose to spend it. Let me prove it to you.
There's a guy named Philip Zimbardo who did some research on the "Demise of Guys". Through his research, he concluded that the average guy spends TEN THOUSAND HOURS playing video games by age 21. You read that right, TEN THOUSAND HOURS. There's a rule that's been researched and written about by Malcolm Gladwell that it takes ten thousand hours to truly master something. By age 21, the average guy could become a true expert in anything - yet we're choosing to spend our time on video games. And teenage guys aren't the only guilty ones - the average American spends 705 hours on social media each year (close to two hours a day). Some other guy named Charles Chu did some research about reading in America - he found the average American can read two to four hundred words per minute. That means the average American (you and I) could read two hundred books every year in just 417 hours - not even an hour and a half each day. Much less than our social media time. The question isn't do we have the time, but rather how are we choosing to spend it?
Read Mark 1:35-39. Jesus was a very public figure.He spoke to crowds, discipled followers, had meals in homes, took time to sit and talk with many people, and performed miracles among many other things. In the passage we just read, He showed us another important side to His life - time spent alone with God. He went up by Himself before daylight and went to a quiet place where He prayed. In this verse, Jesus showed us that life as a child of God means prioritizing time spent alone with Him. It's necessary to fuel us for a life of growth and ministry.
We live in a culture of busyness. We schedule our days down to the minute to make sure we complete all of our work and activities. Jesus taught us that in the midst of our daily lives, spending time alone with Him should be a priority. We need the intimacy, rest, encouragement and teaching that can only come through time spent with Him daily. If you say God is the most important thing in your life, prove it. Look at those numbers above - it's not about time. It's about priorities. Make Him your top one.
Questions for Reflection
Why is spending time alone with God so necessary?
What are you prioritizing in your life right now over time with God?
How could you be using this unique time to be shifting your priorities and creating a habit of spending time alone with God each day?