I am, in most ways, a morning person. After the normal wake-up routine I generally feel rested and full of energy. I’m ready to tackle household chores, go walking, or even make an early morning trip to Walmart. Because this is my most energized time, it is also the best time for me to have my devotions. I have to be careful about where I situate myself to read my Bible. If I’m sitting in the kitchen I can be reading for a while, then I look up and notice something that is out of place in the room. It becomes a distraction to my study. I may remember that something needs to be taken from the freezer for our supper that night. I may notice that the counter could use a cleaning. Before I know it, my mind has jumped to many topics, most of them having nothing to do with what I’m reading! For this reason, I find it best to tuck myself away in a spot that has few distractions. There will never be no distractions, because Satan surely doesn’t want me to study Scripture and He is tricky in bringing things to my mind.
Avoiding Distractions
As I mentioned yesterday, setting up your treadmill in the middle of a donut shop would make it really hard to focus on exercise. In the same way, we need to make it easier on ourselves to stay focused on our time with the Lord. Psalm 119:15 says, I will meditate in thy precepts, and have respect unto thy ways. Notice the determination – “I will!” Also, the psalmist doesn’t just say he would think about the Word of God, but that he would meditate on it. How can we best meditate? Here’s my routine:
Right now I place myself at my desk in my bedroom. My back is facing the biggest part of the room, my face is toward the wall. This helps keep the distractions to a minimum. I keep my desk tidy so I won’t be cleaning while I sit there. I also like to play quiet instrumental music while I study (if I play music with singing I find I want to sing along!). I have a pad of paper on my desk that helps me with the random thoughts that pop into my head. If I suddenly remember a birthday card I need to send out that day, I simply write it down on the pad, then I can put it out of my mind. I use my computer to journal my thoughts, but I keep the screen on either my commentary page or the document page of my journal. In other words, I don’t put up the screen that shows my email or some page that would be another distraction. Another priority I place on my study is that I don’t read anything else (email, Facebook, or the paper) until I’ve read the Word of God. It’s not a legalistic standard, I just know myself! If I don’t read the Word first, it will get delayed. Perhaps for you, you would need to set that standard not to watch television until you’ve had your devotions. We each know our pitfalls and we must guard against them!
Lanny Bassham, Olympic gold-medalist in small-bore rifle competition, tells what concentration does for his marksmanship: “Our sport is controlled non-movement. We are shooting from 50 meters–over half a football field–at a bull’s eye three- quarters the size of a dime. If the angle of error at the point of the barrel is more than .005 of a millimeter (that is five one-thousandths), you drop into the next circle and lose a point. So we have to learn how to make everything stop. I stop my breathing. I stop my digestion by not eating for 12 hours before the competition. I train by running to keep my pulse around 60, so I have a full second between beats–I have gotten it lower, but found that the stroke-volume increased so much that each beat really jolted me. You do all of this and you have the technical control. But you have to have some years of experience in reading conditions: the wind, the mirage. Then you have the other 80% of the problems–the mind. ** We surely don’t have to go to these kinds of extremes to have personal devotions, but do what you must so you can concentrate and “hit the target.”
I pray we can say with the psalmist in Psalm 119:168b – I love thy testimonies exceedingly! Rearrange your routine if you need to in order to get the most out of God’s Word. It is the most important thing we’ll accomplish all day.
P.S. Are there issues you struggle with that I have not covered in these blogs? If so, please let me know and we’ll address them.
**Sports Illustrated, August 2, 1976, pp. 31-35, quoted in How to Profit from Bible Reading, I. L. Jensen, Moody Press, p. 80.
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