The Busy Barrier.

An article about finding time to sit with God when your schedule is full.

Hey Friends!

Before you jump into this week’s article, I just wanted to make sure that you were aware that The Lighthouse is a podcast too. Each week I record and post this same article, because I know some people prefer to listen rather than read. If that’s you, subscribe to The Lighthouse Podcast wherever you listen. For sake of ease, you can find links to subscribe on Spotify and Apple Podcasts below. I hope it’s helpful!

- Ryan

From CEOs to stay-at-home parents, we all share one thing in common:

We.

Are.

Busy.

My guess is, you feel like you have too much to do and too little time in which to accomplish it. There are the obvious responsibilities like work and school. But you and I also have homes to clean and lawns to mow. We have food to buy, returns to make, and kids to shuttle from one place to another like unpaid Uber drivers. Then there’s all the things we actually want to do. There is music to listen to, books to read, and an endless amount of incredible streaming content to watch. There are hikes, brunches, and parties. The demands of our day-to-day responsibilities are relentless.

I saw a glaring example of this just the other day. My wife, Tami, was driving me to work because our 16-year-old is now driving what was my car. Because I wasn’t driving, I was able to be more aware of what was happening around me. As we sat in a sea of cars at a red light, I looked to my right and noticed a woman putting on her makeup while stopped. I know we talk a lot about the dangers of texting and driving, but this has to be equally dangerous, right? Now, I confess that I don’t understand how makeup works, but painting your eyelids while operating a vehicle seems ill-advised.

As I watched this, I’m embarrassed to admit that my first response was judgmental. I thought, “Why don’t you just get up earlier? Getting ready while driving seems way worse than waking up 10 minutes earlier.” But the truth is, I don’t know this woman’s story or situation. For all I know, she’s a single mom who woke up far earlier than I did, so that she could shower, and then wake up her kids, feed them, dress them, and get them ready for school, all before she rushed out the door only halfway ready to get to the job that keeps them all housed, fed, and alive. If nothing else, the fact that she has to do her makeup in the car indicates that she’s probably busier than she prefers.

All that being said, there’s a reason I bring up the unfortunate reality of how busy you and I are. Busyness is a significant barrier in our spiritual lives. What I mean is, you may be so busy that you feel like you simply don’t have space for a relationship with God. And the truth is, our busyness isn’t all our own fault. It’s a systemic problem in our culture. Our culture views rest as a reward earned at the expense of working to the point of burnout. Margin isn’t seen as a necessity for human flourishing. Instead, it’s wasted time that could be filled with something more productive.

Now, you and I alone probably aren’t going to change the way culture at large has chosen to embrace busyness as a way of life. Furthermore, you probably have limited control over the demands on your schedule. So, the purpose of this particular article isn’t to rally a quiet resistance to our broken worship of busyness in the world around us. That’s a problem for another day. What I want us to tackle today is the way you and I tend to allow full schedules to keep us from sitting with God. With few exceptions, I believe most of us have the time to sit with God. The trick is trying to find it.

Most of us have time to sit with God. The trick is trying to find it.

You may truly be in a season of life that severely limits your time. So the time you have to intentionally sit with God may not be long. It may not be all that you’d like it to be. It certainly won’t be everything it could be. But that doesn’t mean that we can’t find any time to sit with God throughout the week. So I want to invite you to shelve any shame or over-idealized expectations of what’s required to have a meaningful experience with God each day. Let me share five suggestions for finding time to sit with God in a full schedule:

1. Make it first.

The most surefire way I’ve found to sit with God consistently is to make it the first thing I do. So wake up, pour some coffee, and find a quiet space where you won’t be interrupted. Savor a few silent moments, listen to a Lectio Divina, read a passage from Scripture, journal, do whatever works best for you, but consider making it the first thing you do each day.

In suggesting this, I want to be clear about something. I’m not trying to spiritualize putting your time with God first. I’ve heard those sermons and I’ve read those books. Yes, Jesus woke up early to pray (Mark 1:35). But he didn’t do that because there’s something more spiritual about the morning. He prayed in the morning because His days were full and prone to interruption, so He needed to find time where He could if He wanted to talk with His Father. By the way, Jesus also prayed during the day and at night. So if you ever hear someone elevating the spirituality of being with God in the morning, all you’re really hearing is someone shamelessly sharing what works for them.

I suggest this for purely pragmatic purposes. The things we prioritize get done. It’s that simple. The likelihood that we’re tired, or lack the time we hoped for later in the day is high. So I recommend making it first.

2. Put it on the calendar.

Maybe first thing in the morning truly isn’t feasible for you. If that’s the case, I’ve found the next best thing to be putting it on my calendar. Like, literally. I’ve gone through seasons where I was struggling with the morning, so I scheduled “Sit With God” on my calendar. You know your schedule. You know the tasks and responsibilities that sit before you each day. You know where you’ll either naturally have, or can intentionally choose to have some breathing room. Find that space and calendar in some time to sit with God.

3. Build a group.

Confession: I have a complicated relationship with the word “accountability.” I grew up in a time when “purity culture” was all the rage. So when I was young, all I equated with the word “accountability” was awkward conversations about my sexuality. I dreaded going into those conversations and I usually felt shame coming out of them. So, I struggle with this word and maybe you do too. If that’s the case, I want to be clear: when I say “build a group,” I’m not talking about enlisting a team of people to shame you each time you bow to your busy schedule and fail to sit with God.

No, I’m talking about gathering a small group of people with a shared longing to know God more. This group should be a source of encouragement, inspiration, and support. And because we’re all busy, I’m not even recommending this group meet in person. I’d suggest a simple text thread with you and a friend or two. Each time one of you sits with God, share a word, phrase, or image from the Scripture you read that resonated with you. Share what it touches in your life and what you sense the Spirit inviting you to within it. That’s it! We’re talking three sentences. While it may be simple, I’ve found the communal component to be a massive help.

4. Utilize your weekend.

I understand that some people have jobs that demand their attention constantly, even extending into weekends, leaving little room for anything else. For those individuals, even the briefest moments available for spiritual reflection may feel fleeting. However, for the majority of us, we do have the luxury of days off. In these moments, there lies an opportunity to prioritize our relationship with God. Perhaps you can set aside some time, even an extended period, to listen, read, reflect, and write. It may not be all you want, but it’s certainly better than nothing.

5. Look for “spare change” moments.

Less and less is “spare change” even a thing, but there was a day when we all had loose coins lying around. If you were smart, you had a jar where all that change went and over time it accumulated into an amount you could do something with. I once heard someone suggest this same strategy for finding more time to read. They recommended always carrying a book with you so that when you were waiting on a train, standing in line, or sitting in a waiting room, you could steal a few moments to read. I have to tell you, it works. These “loose change” moments really add up. Think about how many of those “spare change” moments we now spend looking at our phones! We’re all swamped, but still somehow finding a way to spend an average of 4.5 hours a day on our phones.

So what if we stole back some of that spare change time to turn our attention to God? You could listen to Scripture. You could keep a list of prayer points on your phone. You could practice breath prayer. You can take 5 minutes to sit still and simply be with God. The point is, we all have time. We just need to find it.

Make the Most of the Time You Have.

Now ideally, I long to sit with God every day. My assumption is, at least some part of your heart longs for the same. You and I want to connect with God deeply and meaningfully in a way that is free of hurry.

And…

Sometimes we have full weeks and our best-laid plans never come to fruition. Sometimes we get sick or walk through a season of crisis. When these things inevitably happen, we have two choices:

We can get discouraged by all the time we didn’t have, or we can invest the time we do.

In my experience, God honors the time we offer. Yes, we can always offer more. Yes, we can always be working toward more margin in our lives. But if we wait for our circumstances to be perfect, we’ll miss the chance to meet with God right now.