Minute Men

“You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart.”

Jeremias 29:13

Seed:

John 15:1-11

Plant:

I was looking up scriptures on a Bible app on my phone this morning, and as I scrolled to the end of a chapter, there was an ad that caught my eye. It was titled, “One Minute to God Per Day.”

It made me think of all the one minute devotionals and one minute Bible reading plans and one minute prayer books you can buy these days. There’s a whole subset of Christian literature out there aimed at encouraging people to spend as little time with God each day as possible. They create an idea that if we can find one minute out of the 1440 minutes we get every day, then we’re doing something good.

Good for us that we can find time to squeeze God into our busy schedules, even if it’s only for one minute. As if that singular minute is enough to carry us through the rest of our day. As if in that brief moment, we can drink up enough nourishment from the tough of our Heavenly Father to satisfy our thirsty souls. As if that one minute is enough to combat the other 1439 minutes in which the world bombards us with all the things opposed to the things of God.

Don’t get me wrong, some days we don’t have hours to spend pouring over the Word of God. In fact, that would probably be true of most days. Kids, jobs, chores, life. All of these things are vying for, it seems, more minutes than we have to give in a day. And sometimes, it seems like the things that get the least attention aren’t necessarily of least importance, they’re simply the least loud, in our face, demanding of our time.

Often, though, those things that are easiest to put off for later are the things that matter most.

One minute a day isn’t enough time to spend with God any more than it’s enough time to connect with our spouse. If I only gave my husband only one minute of my time each day, I’d be married to a stranger… if we even stayed married at all. No, one minute wouldn’t be enough at all. It wouldn’t satisfy me, it wouldn’t satisfy my husband, and it wouldn’t sustain our marriage for very long.

We need time with our Heavenly Father much more than that. And a Holy God certainly deserves much more of our time.

This “one minute” mindset robs us of the very thing we need the most. It conditions us to embrace the crumbs on the floor rather than take our place at the table where we can feast on the Word of Life. He is, after all, the Bread of Life and Living Water.

Oh, that our hearts would long for the LORD as King David, who said:

“One thing I have asked of the LORD; this is what I desire: to dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze on the beauty of the LORD and seek Him in His temple.” -Psalm 27:4

“For better is one day in Your courts than a thousand elsewhere. ” – Psalm 84:10

“Taste and see that the LORD is good; blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him! Fear the LORD, you His saints, for those who fear Him lack nothing.” – Psalm 34:8-9

Our desire to spend time with the LORD speaks directly to our love for Him. The more we love Him, the more we want to spend time with Him. And the more time we spend with Him, the more we will come to love Him.

God doesn’t demand our time. Maybe that’s why it’s so easy to put Him off. He doesn’t need our attention, but He sure does want it. He wants a relationship with us.

Harvest:

Father, thank You for loving me. Thank You for choosing me from the foundation of the world to have a relationship with You. You don’t want a robot, You want a friend. You don’t want a slave, You want a child. You want me. Remind me of the importance of abiding in You that my life might bear good fruit. Nothing else matters without You. Amen