Wondering How you Can Find Time to Meditate?
Living in a society that puts more value on doing than being, it’s so easy to get caught up in a perpetual state of busyness. I struggle with this as well. Everything seems more important than, let’s say, to meditate. By meditate I mean sitting for 20 minutes and focusing on our breath, a sacred word, or a scripture. Just think, I could be taking the dishes out of the dishwasher, checking my emails, or even cleaning the bathroom.
If we could tally up how we spend our hours, we’d get a good glimpse into our priorities. Before I go any further, I dare to say, that most of us put too little value on loving and nurturing ourselves the way that we should.
For most, our lives are divided up into 7 core areas: health, work, recreation, relationships, passions, spirituality, and personal development.
Now take a few minutes to either think about or jot down where you spend most of your time based upon this list. Do you find that you have a good balance between all 7 or do some areas take precedence over others?
I find when talking with people, myself included, that the areas that suffer most are in the areas of health and well-being, personal development, and spirituality. Let me just say that spirituality is much more than just going to church.
With these three in mind, think about all the activities that you do to support these areas. You may list things like monthly massage, church on Sunday, taking vitamins, cooking healthy foods at home, seeing a therapist, prayer, etc.
Now let’s twittle it down even further, make a list of the things or activities that you do that support your inner man or your spiritual being. In the Bible, we are encouraged to renew our minds and purify our hearts. We are told to let go of everything that defiles the spirit and to pursue holiness.
Paul said, we must die daily to the things of the flesh and submit ourselves unto God to be molded and shaped into the person he created us to be.
So let me ask you, how much time do you devote to internal transformation by opening your mind and heart to the presence of God, so he can clean you from the inside out? How much time do you spend abiding in his presence? The Bible tells us that unless we abide in him and he in us, we can do nothing of significant value? How much time do you spend meditating on God’s word and principles so that you can hide His word in your heart, so you don’t unwittingly or knowingly sin against him?
If we don’t make our personal and spiritual development a priority, it’s not going to happen. We are told to work out our own soul salvation, but this doesn’t mean that we are to strive in this effort. If we will submit ourselves to God, He will do the work in us.
So what are you doing each day to elevate your spirit and renew your mind?
But getting back to the original question, who can afford the time to meditate? In reality, who can’t afford the time! It all boils down to how you want to live your life, connected to yourself and God through your spirit, or connected to the things of the world through “doing” instead of “being.”
20-minutes or more each day to push the reset button, check in or reconnect with God, just abide in his presence, in my opinion, is the most important time we can spend during the day. Everything we do emanates from within. We want our actions and decisions to come from a place of wisdom, wholeness, peace, joy, and divinity. This is cultivated by building our lives on a spiritual foundation first and foremost and then allow everything else will fall into place.
When we are close to God and can hear him and be led by his quiet inner voice and promptings, we can avoid pitfalls that we didn’t see as well as receive insight that will catapult us forward quicker than if we try to do it in our own wisdom and strength.
We can’t out give God. When we give God the first few fruits of our day we are guaranteed that he will multiply that time and give it back to us in countless blessings and marvelous ways.
Therefore, carve out ways to work on your inner man as well as your outer man. Look at where you can cut back some of the more tangible activities and make your personal and spiritual development your highest priority, because it is.
Need some tools to help you? Check our my Christian Meditation Product Library.
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