How do you walk by the Spirit when there seems so little time to spend in the Bible to learn what God has told us about how to live?
Maybe you are in a season of life where time seems to be at a premium and you find it very difficult to set aside time for Bible reading and study. And this can be for numerous different reasons. A habit of spending time in God’s Word daily is commendable, and in Joshua’s case, and other leaders in scripture, was commanded (Joshua 1:7-8; Deut. 17:18-20). It is a goal to strive for to learn God’s will and ways from his word.
However, we must not confuse good habits that help us grow in the knowledge of God and his ways, with actually walking by the Spirit in a godly lifestyle. If we are not careful, the former can become a legalistic act, but the latter, which is truly putting into practice what we know of God to that point in our lives, cannot be faked (Philippians 3:12-16).
Love God, Love His Word
God doesn’t want us checking off boxes on our spiritual “to-do” list to try and please him. He wants us to obey his word out of love for him, as we’ve previously established. Jesus said that God’s greatest commandment is, “You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength” (Deuteronomy 6:5; Mark 12:30). The second most important commandment is to love your neighbor as yourself. Everything we do can be tested against that standard (Matthew 22:34-40).
Love for God and his word must fuel and undergird all our good habits (our “spiritual disciplines”) and our obedience to God’s word and will. Choosing to love God, we walk with him every day, keeping our spiritual eyes on him, learning to love him more each day, even, or perhaps because of, the mysteries and the unknowns we are confronted with when it comes to understanding God’s ways. His ways are different, much higher than our ways. That is a good thing! He is God; we are not. Our task is to become shaped to his ways, not the other way around. Recognizing this about God and ourselves is a great deterrent to discouragement with God.
We all have seasons of life when it is hard to make time to be alone with God and his word. I wrote about one incident in my early years of motherhood, in this quote from Teach Us to Pray, a Bible study on the Lord’s Prayer. [1]
“How often have you felt you just didn’t have the time to spend with God alone? Most of us will agree we do need to exert energy to make time to spend focusing on God because it will not otherwise happen. We live in a noisy, demanding world, and must be intentional to make the time to come aside and train our minds and hearts to focus on God. Spending time with God, focusing on him, using a psalm to tune our hearts to worship him, thanking and praising him, is how to nurture a deep love and longing for God.
“The point of it is to be with God in those moments, and learn to be with him throughout each day, whatever our tasks or responsibilities; this is practicing the Presence of God and is the underpinning of true fellowship with God.
“It was the quiet hour before my eight-month-old son should wake up, the sun just starting to peep over the horizon; the perfect time to read my Bible.
“Mommy!” his little voice called.
Oh no, I lamented. He’s already awake!
“Lord, how can I be spiritual when he won’t even let me read my Bible?”
Yes, I actually said that to God! Of course, I was immediately smitten with conviction, a chuckle of embarrassment in my throat colliding with my frustration; a mental image of God softly laughing and shaking his head.
There are times in our lives, sometimes years long, when it is hard to snatch a few minutes to read the Bible or focus on anything but the task at hand. God knows this. He understands. At the same time, that doesn’t mean he lets us become slack in our commitment to be with him. When we persist in seeking the Lord, desiring to know him better, and walk in his ways, we will find our way, even though it is by grabbing snatches of time here and there to read our Bible and pray, stutter-stepping to keep pace with our heavenly Father’s patient steps guiding us.”
We have established that love for God and his word are paramount. Even when our time is greatly restricted by other demands (job, children, husband, or other people) we can find time for God when we work at it because it is a high priority for us, because we love God.
Regardless of how difficult it may be to find “quiet time” in our lives—and this is key—our focus must always be on our Lord. Not on ourselves and what we cannot do; nor on others, trying to do what they do. Despite the demands on our time, recognizing that God is with us at all times will deeply enrich our walk with him moment by moment. That brings us to this important reality in walking by the Spirit:
Practice Makes …
Practice living in God’s Presence all the time, not just when you make time to read the Bible or pray or go to church services. It’s all about loving God with all our hearts, souls, minds, and strength all the time. If you have been born again into the living hope of eternity with Christ, you have God the Holy Spirit living in you who is always at work to transform you into the image of Jesus. He is always with us. Let’s learn to be with him.
Walking by the Spirit obviously cannot be done without the Spirit of God. If he is in you, he will teach you that walk. The Bible comes into the process because God had all he wanted to pass on to us written down (Deuteronomy 29:29). All Jesus taught that we need to know is available to us. That is why Bible reading and study should be a high priority.
But Bible study is only a means to an end, it is not the end itself.
Remember Jesus’ words that those are blessed who hear and do the Word of God. Walking with the Spirit of God in loving obedience to God’s word, recognizing the presence of God with us and communing with him at any time and all times, is the journey and the end. That is walking by the Spirit.
There is always so much more that could be said, but I’ll save those thoughts for another blog post as we consider what walking by the Spirit means and what it looks like when we do.
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Photo by Randy Tarampi on Unsplash
[1] Excerpt from Teach Us to Pray, a Bible study based on the Lord’s Prayer, available as a free download at my website JacquelineGWallace.com/books.