For the Busy Woman Who Still Wants Devotion

If you are waiting for a quiet season to begin a devotional life, you will wait the rest of your life. The women who built lasting practices did not build them in monasteries. They built them in kitchens, in cars, in fifteen-minute windows before the day broke open.

The myth of the long quiet time

The hour-long morning devotion is beautiful. It is also not the standard. The standard is faithfulness, not duration. Ten honest minutes, repeated, will form you. Sixty resentful minutes, abandoned in two weeks, will not.

The ten-minute rhythm

Two minutes: settle. Breathe. Sit. Light a candle if you can. Just arrive.

Five minutes: one short passage, read twice, slowly. Underline one word.

Three minutes: open the journal. Write one sentence to God about what you noticed. Write one sentence about what you are carrying into today. That is the practice.

It will feel too small. It is not too small. Smallness sustained is the whole game.

When the day starts before you do

Move it. There is no rule that says devotion must happen before sunrise. A ten-minute window in the car before you walk into work. A ten-minute window after the kids are down. A ten-minute window in the bathroom, if that is what you have. God meets you in inconvenient rooms.  Faithfulness is not measured in hours. It is measured in returns.

Download the free "For the Busy Woman Who Still Wants Devotion" practice worksheet

What to drop

Drop the guilt about the days you miss. Drop the comparison to women whose seasons are different. Drop the idea that this has to look impressive. Pick it up again, today, for ten minutes. That is the practice. That is, in fact, the whole faith.