Finding God in the Daily Grind: Cultivating Christian Spiritual Disciplines in Your Busy Life

PLEASE PIN - Spiritual disciplines for busy Christians

How do you find time for God with a busy schedule?

Lisa sits down with her Bible at the kitchen table, only to have the first of her two young children come bounding in, declaring that she’s “starving.” Her morning turns into a whirlwind. Between cleaning with her children, engaging with them in a few educational games, and trying to make some headway with her craft business, her time sweeps away like a dry leaf in an autumn breeze.

Then it’s lunchtime, and her youngest child accidentally spills his tomato soup all over the table, himself, and the floor. It takes her almost an hour to clean up the mess, and by then the children are tired and snapping at each other. She’d hoped to have a little time to read her Bible and pray while they napped, but her older child won’t go to sleep. Besides, Lisa is so tired she can hardly think.

The rest of the day passes in a similar way, and when her husband arrives home, she has to get dinner going. Evenings are dedicated to spending time together as a family, and by the time the children go to bed, Lisa wants to curl up into a ball herself.

Her husband, however, has a different idea on how they should spend their child-free time.

When Lisa finally closes her eyes to sleep, guilt is poking at her stomach, reminding her, once again, what a lousy Christian she must be with the way she keeps ignoring God.

Whether you’re a stay-at-home parent or a working single person, you can probably relate to the busyness of Lisa’s life. And if you’re a Christian like her, you feel guilty that you struggle to make time for spiritual disciplines.

In that case, allow me to offer you a glimmer of hope: a busy person can integrate spirituality in their daily life. Like attaining any goal, it requires intentionality, flexibility, and grace.

In this article, I will provide practical strategies and mindset shifts to help you integrate the key Christian spiritual disciplines into your everyday life, which will in turn enable you to foster a deeper relationship with God.

Understanding the “why”: Reframing spiritual disciplines.

My mother was in her eighties when she decided to join a “Life in the Spirit” group that was a part of the church she attended. She didn’t stick it out. The straw that broke the camel’s back was the day the leader said that if she really wanted to stay connected to and filled with the Holy Spirit, she had to commit to, among other things, praying for at least fifteen minutes a day.

This kind of legalistic thinking is what brings on the guilt, sometimes even spiritually-based anxiety and depression, for people struggling to grow closer to the Lord. The purpose of spiritual disciplines is not to adhere to arbitrary requirements. Especially not those set upon you by other people!

You’re not trying to win a national tournament, earn a special and highly sought-after title, or  build a business in a competitive space. You’re trying to grow closer to the Lord.

The purpose of spiritual disciplines, in other words, are practices that open us to God’s presence and transform our hearts so they will gradually, incrementally conform more and more to His heart, leading us increasingly closer to His will for our lives.

While that might sound rather one-sided, there are distinct benefits of spiritual disciplines for ourselves. They include:

• Deeper intimacy with God.
• Increased peace and joy.
• Greater resilience when the inevitable troubles of life come along.
• Clearer discernment.
• A stronger sense of purpose.

Legalism – that is, adhering to rules that measure your “production” level such as time spent in prayer and number of Bible chapters read – will lead to just the opposite.

The time factor: practical strategies for integration. 

 If you’ve been frustrated over the integration of the spiritual disciplines into your daily life, the first order of business is to give that frustration to our heavenly Father. That negativity will only serve as an obstacle toward fulfilling your desire to grow in your faith.

The next order of business is to begin to become more aware of your time.

Start small and be realistic.

And when I say small, I mean SMALL. As in, three to five minutes, if that’s all you can spare. A 5-minute devotion during breakfast might be a great start. You might…

• Read a short chapter from the Bible.
• Spend two minutes mentally listing the blessings you’re thankful for.
• Pray for family and friends for five minutes.
• Meditate on an uplifting Bible verse for three minutes.

These baby steps in faith will take you surprisingly far. Your goal here is twofold: first, eliminate all-or-nothing thinking. If you’re like me and belonged to a church fellowship for a long time that implied that more was better, and whoever did the most was the most spiritual and dedicated, this is easier said than done.

But remember that you’re not in competition with other believers (or, as it were, pseudo-believers). You’re trying to find time to connect with Yeshua.

If all you can find for Him in one day is ten minutes, in two- and three-minute spurts, He’s happy to meet with you in that amount of time.

The second part of this goal in starting small is to gradually increase the amount of time you spend in the spiritual disciplines.

Not because you “should” or because God will like you better (He won’t).

But because the more time you spend with Him, the stronger and more fulfilled you become.

That said, short spiritual practices are better than none, and you need to be realistic with your goals. Consistent, small efforts in your spiritual journey will take you much farther than sporadic Saturdays, months apart, spent gorging on the Bible.

Identify small pockets of time.

You may have, at one point or other, joined an online challenge – or instigated a challenge for yourself – to clock how much time you spend in unnecessary activities, such as scrolling through social media and news headlines, engaging in solo entertainment such as Netflix or YouTube, or “puttering around.”

Usually, the context of such challenges is finding time to start an online business.

In this case, I recommend you do it for the purposes of finding time for God in your daily routine.

You might say, “But Emily, I’ve done this. I’ve given up so much, but I’m still too busy for the spiritual disciplines!”

Calm down.

Take a deep breath.

And another.

No matter how busy you are, you do have small pockets of time sprinkled throughout your day. You might…

• Use your commute for spiritual growth by praying or listening to an audio version of the Bible.
• Pray or meditate during waiting times in public places, such as the grocery store, dentist office, or your child’s extracurricular activity practice.

Schedule your devotional time (but be flexible!).

Many Christians use their breakfast time before work to pray and read the Bible, because it’s a convenient time. If you have a family, however, this will probably be far from the optimal time to try to connect with our Father.

So diligently search for another time…and then treat it like an important appointment.

Every.

Day.

Or, if you can’t hack that, then block out that time several times a week. Time management for your spiritual life requires just as much juggling as time management for the rest of your life.

If you’re going to find the time and stick to it, you have to make it as much a priority as going to your job or helping your children with their homework.

And a much higher priority than social media or entertainment.

But sometimes, life will get in the way of your scheduled time with God. So stay flexible and adjust as necessary.

The next point will go far in facilitating that inevitability…

Combine spiritual disciplines with existing activities.

I’ve already touched on that a little bit, when discussing how to find small pieces of time for spiritual growth. Some other ideas include:

• Praying while exercising or doing chores.
• Listening to an audio Bible or sermon while cooking or supervising your children’s play.
• Reflecting on a Bible verse during work.

While multi-tasking in this way all by itself isn’t the ideal for spiritual growth, it’s better than ignoring God altogether. And if your scheduled devotional time is shorter than you’d like it to be, this kind of multi-tasking allows you to weave faith into your day and helps you to stay focused on heavenly things.

Key spiritual disciplines for the busy person.

Because it’s the most common spiritual discipline for people of all religions, and easy to incorporate into a busy day, I’ve inadvertently focused a lot on prayer already. But there is one aspect I have not yet highlighted.

Praying without ceasing.

The concept is worth its own blog post. But for now, I’ll be brief.

To pray without ceasing is to intentionally keep your mind fixed on God as much as you can. It is to, in the moments when you don’t have to be solving a problem or engaged in a work or business activity, be lifting up a silent “thank You” or “bless so-and-so” or “I love You, Lord” or “please help X world leader with Y problem.”

It’s learning to set your mind on the things above, rather than on your regrets and your worries.

Now let’s look at the other important Christian spiritual disciplines.

Scripture reading and meditation.

Reading the Bible requires more intentionality than praying, because it doesn’t lend itself to as much flexibility. If you’re trying to work your spiritual life into a busy schedule, try one or more of the following.

1. Choose a short reading, even a single verse, that you can read within a couple of minutes. Then meditate on that reading throughout the day.
2. Use devotionals, which provide a short Bible reading, a brief exposition on the reading, and a prayer for each day. If you don’t mind formal, more classical English, you can’t do better than My Utmost for His Highest by Oswald Chambers.
3. Find apps or Christian website newsletters that provide a verse of the day. Bible Gateway is one.
4. Every week, divide two or three chapters into six or seven logical chunks of more or less equal size, and read each chunk every day.
5. Take a few minutes in the evening to visit sources such as BibleHub or Bible Gateway to look at the commentaries on the verses that you read that day.

These tips on Bible reading for busy people  will soon put you in the habit of engaging in short Bible studies so that you can begin to apply Scripture to daily life, regardless of how busy it is.

Silence and solitude. 

 

Most people these days have too many voices hitting their eardrums. Whether they are busy with a job and family, or whether they live alone and are doing their best to suppress their loneliness with T.V., music, and video games, they have a lot of external noise coming into their ears.

Noise which can have a detrimental effect on the soul.

And more to our point here, noise which keeps them from hearing the voice of God.

So it’s time to cultivate the spiritual discipline classically referred to as Contemplative Prayer. You might also think of it as Christian meditation. It’s critical to your spiritual growth because it forces you to do as the apostle Paul advised in Phillipians 4:8, to think on God’s truth and the positive aspects of life. When your mind is focused on such things, God has space to deal with those parts of you that need healing or transformation.

And you have space to “hear” His leading and guidance through your conscience.

Everyone can find five minutes in their day to seek out a quiet spot by themselves, even if inside their car on their lunch break, and focus their mind on God. If you carve this intentional quiet time into your day, you will find peace through this kind of solitude, because you won’t really be alone.

You will know that God is there with you.

Worship.

Worship isn’t going to a building on Sunday morning. Many people do so and don’t worship at all.

Neither is worship a genre of music.

Worship is offering every part of yourself to your Creator.

Can you use music to worship? Absolutely. Prayer? Definitely.

But if your motivation is right, your service to others is as worshipful as anything.

More intentional, God-focused worship can be easily incorporated into a busy life. All it takes is shifting your heart attitude to give honor and thanks to your Father while you pray.

Again, a daily commute can serve as worship time, whether via singing to the Lord or whispering words of adoration.

Christian fellowship.

Fellowship with other believers helps you grow. It enables you to view both life and Scripture from other people’s perspectives. It provides a support network for when life’s trials overwhelm you. It’s a source of wisdom you may not have garnered on your own.

It can look like a ten-minute connection with friends or acquaintances before or after a formal worship service.

It can look like a small group meeting for snacks or lunch, and sharing their struggles and triumphs over the past week.

It can look like a weekly one-on-one phone or in-person conversation with a close Christian friend.

It’s likely the most difficult of all the disciplines to integrate into your busy life, because it requires juggling your schedule around. But having other people to bounce ideas off of, to caution you when you’re about to make a mistake, to offer a shoulder to cry on when you need one, to be able to cry on your shoulder when they need one, to celebrate with, will help you become stronger, better, and more humble.

“I forgot…AGAIN!”

As you begin to integrate the spiritual disciplines into the margins of your life, you will have a similar experience as when you embark on any new habit. Some days you’ll do awesome, other days you’ll fall short. You may even sink into bed exhausted and realize you haven’t spoken to God all day.

When the latter happens, give yourself grace. Tomorrow’s a brand new day. Start over. Don’t expect to become a spiritual powerhouse overnight.

And for goodness’ sake, don’t keep track of your misses.

God doesn’t.

The faith life is a journey, not a destination. Start with one or two of the strategies in one or two of the disciplines mentioned above, and remember that God is available at any given moment.

Do you have tips or struggles regarding finding time for God with a busy schedule? Let’s talk about them in the comments below!

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