For When You Can't Find the Time for Quiet Time

If you grew up in or around the Christian faith, you know about quiet time. It was on the summer youth camp schedule as TAWG Time (Time Alone With God...Time. Redundant, I know). You may refer to it as your devotions or meditation or prayer time. No matter its name, it basically defined as time that is set aside for reading scripture, reflection, and prayer. 

We all have a picture in mind of what this time is supposed to look like. Maybe you picture yourself in the woods by a stream with your waterproof Bible and mud-smudged Moleskine. Perhaps it’s a corner table at the local hipster coffee shop with She Reads Truth, a steaming cup of Earl Grey (you coffee shop rebel, you) and Sigur Ros in your earbuds (because even though he is singing about garden gnomes, it sounds like he is beckoning God himself down from heaven).

For me, it’s waking up an hour before everyone else, freshly French pressed dark roast coffee in my favorite mug, sitting out on the back porch, reading the Word as the world comes to life. There’s time for listening, journaling and praying for everyone and everything on my prayer list. Then when everyone rolls out of bed, I am refreshed, energized, and making freshly squeezed orange juice. 

There’s nothing wrong with having an ideal scenario for how you want to set aside time to grow in your walk with God, except when the elusive nature of the ideal keeps you from taking regular steps in that direction. 

This is where I found myself two years ago, wanting desperately to spend time daily in the Word, unable to make my idyllic quiet time picture reality, and recognizing that this disparity was my excuse for not doing it at all. With conviction and humility, I set my intentions in daily actions to sustain growth in my relationship with Jesus. 

So here I am to share some practical steps that are key to spending time with God every day. 

1. Reconcile the Ideal to the Real

In my ideal, this time reading the Bible is spent in the hour before everyone wakes up. The reality is, I don’t know when everyone is going to wake up. I can say with some certainty that everyone in our house will wake up between the hours of 6am and 9am. But if I wake at 5am and no one else wakes up until 8am, that is not time well spent; a mother with a nursing baby needs all the sleep she can get. Even though it isn’t ideal, I wake with everyone, make and eat breakfast with our family, and once the boys are playing, I sit at our kitchen table and commence “quiet (but not so quiet) time”. I still have my coffee and the kitchen table overlooks the backyard. And even though the house isn’t quiet, I am able to quiet my thoughts for 15-20 minutes as I read and reflect on God’s Word. 

How could your ideal picture of quiet time intersect with your real life? Whether it’s a lit candle instead of a crackling fire or earbuds, hot tea, and a Bible at your desk during a break at work, be flexible with your idea of ideal and bring it into the real.

2. Find THE Place for Your Bible

I cleared off a space on our kitchen counter for my Bible beside the incoming mail pile, pens, and other misfit, misplaced items. My thought was that I wanted a place to where it would be out of reach of spills and tiny human hands. But guess what? That space messy and full of things begging to be put on a to-do list. And I LOVE a good to-do list. It’s the perfect place to be distracted by the millions of check-boxes in waiting, things that surely must come before I could do something as luxurious as reading my Bible. So, I moved it to the kitchen table. It sits there almost all the time, unless I fear a milk flood or a coloring spree. I see it when I walk into the kitchen in the morning, along with a journal and a pen. It is unfancy and uncomplicated and precisely where I read it each day. 

Where can you keep your Bible so that it serves a reminder to open it? It could be an end table by your favorite chair, the corner of your desk along with your teacup, or the sole app on the first screen of your phone. Wherever you put it, make sure it is a visual signal to pick it up and read.

3. Be Open to Keeping It Open

Once you finish reading the verses or chapters you set out to read, it makes sense to close your Bible and move on through your day. But keeping it open is one tiny change that has made a big difference in my Bible-reading habits. In whatever passage I have read that day, there is usually one or two key verses that were particularly moving or convicting or thought-provoking. I may underline or bracket or write out those verses as I read. Then, with that Bible still open, I see it multiple times as I go about the day, clearing dishes, eating lunch, wiping down the table after dinner. Each time I see it, my eyes move to those verses and I can continue to meditate on them as I do the daily grind, which is exactly where I need God the most. 

If you’re having a hard time finding the time to sit down and read long passages, this may be a great way to get in the Word every day. Leave your Bible open on the bathroom counter and read a Psalm or a few Proverbs as you brush your teeth. With your Bible open on the kitchen counter, read a chapter of Acts as you wait for the pasta water to boil. Set your lock and home screen on your phone or your computer background with a verse you’re trying to memorize. A few minutes here and there sprinkled throughout your day adds up; don’t discount small amounts of time in the Word, for a little yeast makes the whole loaf rise.

4. Have a Plan

Sometimes the thing that has kept me from reading is the Bible is that I didn’t know where to start. In novels, you start at on the first page (unless you’re weird and read the endings first). In encyclopedias (remember those?), you go to the page of the topic you want to learn more about. In magazines, you flip through and read the things with the best pictures. But the Bible? In times of total cluelessness, I’ve played Bible roulette: ask God to show you what He wants you to read, flip the pages, insert finger to fluttering pages, point to a verse, et voila! That verse in Numbers about the gold table and blue tablecloth is exactly what you needed today.  

If this sounds like you, then you need a plan. There are endless online resources available to you for FREE to help you begin to navigate the Bible. Some of my favorites are She Reads Truth / He Reads Truth, daily scripture reading through topical studies or books of the Bible; YouVersion Bible App has thousands of reading plans and will even send you reminders to spend time in scripture; if you’re a paper and pen kind of person, She Reads Truth published a fantastic Bible study called Open Your Bible, perfect for any person at any point in her walk with Jesus; and if you want to simply choose a book of the Bible and read it, I suggest beginning in John, then continuing through Acts and Romans. Having a plan helps to take the guess work out of how you are going to interact with scripture that day and keeps you intentionally moving through the Word.

5. Small and Deliberate is Better than Big and Haphazard

We’ve all done the big thing quick: going from typical Western diet to complete vegan or raw foods, not exercising at all to aiming to run five miles each day, messy and unorganized home to massive declutter and cleaning extravaganza. The problem is that in less than a week we are eating at McDonalds again and we are mad because the house is a wreck again. These grandiose endeavors rarely produce long term results because we haven’t developed the structure in our lives to support them. 

Aiming to make ten minutes of reading and reflecting in the Word a regular part of your daily routine is a more sustainable habit than setting out to take an hour of solitude to read scripture and pray. As your life starts taking shape around this small and deliberate piece of time, don’t be surprised to find yourself craving and making more time for “quiet time”. 

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I can read every Christian blog and devotional book out there about what they think about God, but the Bible is the place where I hear from Him. For a follower of Jesus, there really isn’t a better way to get to know His heart and desire for my life than in reading His Word. It is these words He wants to write on my heart, making it more like His. This is a place in my spiritual life I’ve often neglected, for reasons both valid and lazy. He’s always been with me in my ordinary, laundry-doing days, but with these small steps in spending time with Him in the Word, I am more aware of His presence and my daily need for Him. 

Tell me, what makes it hard for you to find quiet time? Or what habits have you made in your day in order to spend time reading the Bible? I’d love to know!