How To Spend Time With God

A relationship with God is the most important relationship any of us can have. As with any relationship, spending time with each other is required in order to know each others hearts and grow closer together. It’s the same in our relationship with God. He already knows everything about us and He loves us unconditionally; but He wants to be known by us as well, and that takes spending time with Him. God is so vast and so deep that in our lifetime, we can never fully know Him. It’s an exciting, lifelong journey that we will be on until the day we come face to face with our glorious Creator. Oh what a day that will be!

There was a time in my life that I struggled spending time with God. It wasn’t that I didn’t love Him or want to, but rather, I didn’t really know how to connect with God in a personal way. I tried and failed. I felt like I was just going through the motions. Many times, it felt dry and forced. Can anyone relate? As I continued to press through the ups and downs, I finally learned how to connect with God personally and my whole world changed. I changed. My relationships changed. My circumstances changed! Today, my relationship with God is exciting and fulfilling and something I would never be willing to give up. Maybe you can relate, but if you struggle like I once did, I so want you to experience this life changing relationship, and more importantly, so does your Heavenly Father. He loves you with an everlasting love and His arms are wide open to you.

How to spend time with God? Honestly, there is no right or wrong way, but it should always involve God’s Word. Why? Because God’s Word is just that…. His words to YOU. The Bible is God’s personal love letter to us. It’s our roadmap for life. It’s the infallible truth. It never changes. When God speaks to us, it will always line up with His Word. He will never contradict it. When we spend time with God in His Word, we will get to know God’s heart, His will for our lives, and the understanding of how to live it out.

“My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me:And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.” John 10:27-28

As we spend time with God in His Word, it will become easier and easier to discern the voice of the Holy Spirit in our lives. If we are “feeling” or “hearing” something that contradicts God’s Word, we’ll know, and be able to avoid the traps of the enemy and cast down the lies he loves to whisper to discourage us. God’s Word will open our eyes to the clear path He has for us, and as the Bible says, it will be “a lamp for my feet, and a light on my path (Psalm 119:105)”

I used to struggle with the Word, because I didn’t really understand it. The King James with all the “thees” and “thous” can be quite confusing. There are so many versions these days however, that we don’t have to struggle as many often did in the past. I also used to feel that if I didn’t study my Bible in a certain way or for a certain length of time, it wasn’t good enough. I’d feel guilty and I would draw away from God. Guilt causes us to hide. This is a common tactic of the enemy when we are desiring to approach God. He makes us feel unworthy, sinful, incompetent….whatever it may be, but this is NOT God’s heart towards us. God’s arms are always open. He just wants us to run into them. It’s not about how many minutes or hours you spend with God, it’s just that you are. It’s not about us being perfect, but coming to the only Perfect One who loves us no matter what.

My time with the Lord has changed through the seasons of my life. When I had two toddlers, one hanging on each leg, 24/7, my time with God looked very different than it does now. Back then, taking a few minutes to write a verse on an index card, then carrying it around with me all day, talking to God in the midst of crying, teething toddlers is what my time with God entailed. And you know what? It was good, because I was drawing near to God, and God met me right where I was. James 4:8a tells us that when we draw near to God, He draws near to us. Push past the laundry list of reasons and excuses the enemy wants to consume you with, and just draw near to God. As you do, you will be in awe every single time by how God meets you right where you are.

One of my favorite questions to ask people is, “How do you spend time with God?” If you know me, I may have asked you this. I love to hear how others connect with God. I have a friend who take her Bible and goes right into her closet and shuts out the world. Now that’s a prayer closet in the literal sense! She always feels God’s Presence with her and shares with me the beautiful things she receives from God during her time with Him. It makes me want to clean my messy closet and do the same!!! You may have heard this before, but Susanna Wesley had nineteen children, 2 of which grew up to become famous world-changing revivalists. I can’t imagine the noise, the busyness, the demands of 19 children; but Susanna knew her time with the Lord was invaluable, and she would just throw her apron over her head in the midst of it all and spend some time with God. I love it! And most importantly, God loves it, because He loves us and desires relationship with us as much as we do with Him, if not more!

Set a time aside: We are more likely to have a consistent time with God if we do. Put it in your calendar if you need to. Pick a special place. For me, it’s in the morning when I wake up, on my couch, with a cup of coffee before anyone else in the house is awake. It’s just me and God. Maybe for you, it will be in your car on your lunch break, or in the evening before bed. There is no right or wrong time, just pick a time.

Prepare your heart: I don’t know about you, but I usually have a lot of things swirling around in my mind. I’m often carrying a lot of things in my heart that I need to give to the Lord too. Before I spend time with God, I prepare my heart. I personally do this, by praying, “Lord, I put all aside to spend time with you.” Then I start to worship Him by thanking Him for His goodness, and His amazing attributes. This helps me to push every distraction and weight aside. It helps me to let go so I can receive. I used to enter right in, but then I’d be focused more on my problems than hearing what the Lord wanted me to hear. And I learned that when I put everything else aside, He is going to give me exactly what I need in that time with Him. Maybe it will be the answer to my problem, or the grace to endure, or the joy that strengthens me, but no matter what, it is always just what I need. Maybe for you it will be listening to worship music or just being still for a time. Heart preparation will make your time with the Lord more effective, and keep your mind from wandering all over the place. It will help you to incline your heart to His Word (Psalm 119:112).

Time in the Word & switching it up! I love God’s Word and I love switching up the way I spend time with God. It keeps my time fresh and exciting. Here are just a few ways I love to spend time in God’s Word.

1. Pick a book of the Bible. Don’t speed through it. Spend time in each chapter and on each verse, underlining or circling anything that stands out to you. Write down revelations you receive about scripture. Study further things that may spark your interest. Talk to God about it. Pray the verses over your life. I can spend months in one book of the Bible. I love to look words up in the concordance and see the depth of their meaning in Greek or Hebrew.
2. Do a topical study. Maybe you want to know more about love, forgiveness, grace, or righteousness. If you choose love, use a concordance to find out every verse in the Bible that talks about love. Write down each verse. Journal the revelation you receive.
3. Do a Bible Study written by someone. When I was younger in my faith, I needed a Bible study to even be able to spend time with God at all. I needed someone to guide me in my time with the Lord and there was nothing wrong with that. I still like to do a Bible study once in a while. It’s a nice way to change things up, and even see the Word through a different perspective. I like Bible studies that really dig deep into God’s Word.

Meditate on God’s Word: The word meditate means very simply, “to think on, to ponder.” The largest part of my time with the Lord is meditation, because this continues all day long for me. Sometimes, I will receive revelation instantly when I spend time with God, but very often, it’s as I go about my day, staying connected to the Lord, by thinking on my time with Him that morning, This is part of listening to hear what God wants to say to us through His Word. Most often God speaks to us through and inner knowing as we are attuned to Him. We may receive comfort in an area we were stressing about, or we will suddenly have the wisdom to a problem we were wrestling with. We may hear the whisper of the Holy Spirit, just reminding us how much God loves us and will always keep us. I like to write verses on index cards and carry them with me so I can read them and meditate on them throughout the day. I will often take God’s Word and pray it over my life and those I love.

“Blessed is the one who does not walk in step with the wicked
or stand in the way that sinners take or sit in the company of mockers,
but whose delight is in the law of the Lord, and who meditates on his law day and night. That person is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither— whatever they do prospers.” Psalm 1:1-3

Pushing past the dry times. I’m not going to lie. There are seasons when my time with the Lord feels dry. He feels distant. I “feel” like I can’t hear or “feel” Him. I used to feel so frustrated, and even rejected during these times, wondering where God was and why I couldn’t feel His Presence. As I’ve matured, those times have gotten much more far and few between. Their length has shortened, and I’ve been able to push past the dryness into the abundance found His Presence.

First of all, it’s important to remember that God promises that He’ll never leave or forsake us. He is always with us. Still, at times, it can “feel” like He is distant; especially when we struggle to hear His voice, or to receive the answer to prayer we need, or we are going through a lengthy time of trial and pain. Often, when we feel God is distant, we tend to distance ourselves from Him, and that’s the worst thing we can do. Instead of drawing closer to the One who holds the answer to our every problem, who will provide the comfort we so desperately need and give us the wisdom to walk this journey called life, we draw back and this only makes the dry time last longer.

Studying Song of Solomon was life changing for me. It’s a book not many read, because they mistakenly think it’s just a love story between two strangers. And yet, when we open our hearts to this book in God’s Word, and study it allegorically, as a love story between us and God, we will learn a great deal about our relationship with Jesus, the lover of our soul. For me personally, one of the most profound things I learned through this book, was that when it seems God has removed His Presence from me, He really hasn’t. He is there in the distance, beckoning me to come after Him, because He sees the great potential in me, and is wanting to draw me up higher with Him. Let’s be honest; most of us will stay in our comfort zones unless nudged out of them. Our comfort zone can never be the growth zone, and God loves us too much to leave us there. It’s when we run after Him and pursue Him in the dry and difficult times, especially in those moments that we feel alone and unlovely, God will supernaturally give us His vantage point, enabling us to see that He is with us every moment in all His power and Glory and He has created us to rise high above anything we may face. I dare to say, that it’s in these dry times, that we will grow in our relationship with God more strongly than any other time, because we are pushing past our natural limitations and weaknesses and allowing God to do the what only He can do in our lives. This will impact our relationship with God in a way that nothing else can, and solidify our unbreakable bond with Him.

I hope that wherever you are in your walk with the Lord, this post has encouraged you to go deeper with Him. I’d like to ask you my favorite question…”How do you spend time with God?” There’s a comment box below! I’d so love to hear from you! Blessings!