Today, I’m going to be very honest with you: in one way or another, we’ve all neglected to spend time with the Lord. Usually, there’s a reason for it that’s easier to find than we’d like to believe.
Some commonalities there are laziness, doubt, or the enemy trying to use our humanity to pull us away from our time with God. And you know what we should do in every single one of those circumstances? Push through and get closer to God.
Let’s open up to Proverbs, Hebrews, and finally, Genesis.
To start, we live in an age of instant gratification. Most of the time, to get it, we simply have to scroll. Our minds get that dopamine rush, and before we know it, we’ve been on TikTok or Instagram for an hour and a half, and every minute of it has been mindless. We’ve not had to think, move, or do much of anything besides scroll. In other words, we’ve wasted the time that could’ve and should’ve been spent with the Lord in a state of idleness—in a state directly rooted in the fact that we can be lazy (very blunt, I know, but I’m talking to myself here, too).
In Proverbs 10:4 (NIV), we’re told that “Lazy hands make for poverty, but diligent hands bring wealth.” This verse has both a practical and a spiritual application. If we’re lazy, we won’t see much success in our professional or personal lives, however, we also won’t see much growth in our spiritual lives. The person who rejects their flesh that wants to turn the brain off and scroll and takes the time to draw nearer to God will find themselves nearer to God than the one who doesn’t. Now, of course, there are other ways to be lazy, however, scrolling on social media is a situation in which I believe most of us have found ourselves.
Most of us have also found ourselves in doubt. Sometimes, that doubt can come from circumstance, however, it can also come from our emotions. Here’s the thing, though: we don’t have to feel a certain way for Him to be there. There are several instances in the Bible where people, in their emotions, doubted what God could do (such as Moses in Exodus) yet, He still did it. God knew Moses was scared, and he still didn’t hold His calling for Moses back. This goes to say that though we have fluctuating emotions (like anxiety or outright fear) God deserves every bit of our time, love, praise, and worship.
Whatever the case, the Bible tells us not to be doubtful. Hebrews 3:12 (NIV) says “See to it, brothers and sisters, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God.” And we do that by pushing through and spending time with the Lord even when we feel that doubt creeping in. We have to remind ourselves that our feelings don’t dictate his goodness and therefore shouldn’t dictate how or when we spend time with Him.
Speaking of feelings—the enemy loves them. Now, not because they can be beautiful, but because he can use them to take advantage of us, and therefore draw us further from God. We see this from the very beginning of the Bible, in Genesis 3. After the serpent had lied to Eve about the consequences of eating fruit from the tree in the middle of the garden, the Bible tells us that “When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it” (Genesis 3:6 NIV). The enemy used Adam and Eve’s curiosity and doubt that God would be true to His Word to get them to eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, which caused the fall. Now, the enemy may not appear to us in the form of a snake, however, he can use other aspects of humanity (i.e. our laziness and our own doubt) to cause us to distance ourselves from God. For example, he’ll say, “you’ve worked hard this week, just relax,” to us, and if we let it, that opens the door to laziness, and thus, neglected time with God.
The key takeaway here is that the enemy is constantly trying to find pathways to infiltrate us, however, we can block those by resisting our flesh, and spending time with the Lord. In that time, we gain better discernment, better control over our flesh, and overall, a closer relationship with Him. So, push through and pursue. You’ll be eternally grateful that you did.
MEET THE AUTHOR:
Katie Pennington is a writer and editor who is originally from Hazard, Kentucky, but currently resides with her family in central Tennessee (though she frequently visits her Appalachian roots). Her favorite Bible verse is Psalm 42:5, which reminds her that in despair, there’s hope in God, and there’s healing in praising Him.