This continues a series of reflections on personal devotions written by individuals from many different walks of life. This reflection was written by Brantley VanOverloop, a math teacher at Covenant Christian High School.
Personal devotions are such an important part of a Christian’s spiritual life. Doing devotions with your family or with the class at the beginning of the school day is great, but there also needs to be emphasis on a personal devotion in our life. Personal devotions are time that you spend on your own with the Word of God and in conversation with God.
Personal devotions start with reading of the Word of God. We have to listen to what God is telling us before we open our mouth and begin to talk. We need to know what God is saying to me today, so that we can know how to respond. When you read your Bible, are you doing that so that you can check a box and say that you are done for the day? It is important to be intentional about what you read and to take time to understand the passage as well. If you need to read a smaller portion of God’s word in order to get more out of each little bit, then do that. Once you have spent an appropriate amount of time analyzing the text, respond to God in prayer. Talk about the things that God tells us in His word.
I don’t know if you are like me, but sometimes it is easier to pray out loud than it is in my head. When I am praying in my head, I can get easily distracted. I also seem to have a tendency to repeat myself more when I am praying in my head. One of the things that I have found helpful for making my prayers more meaningful is to say them out loud. This does not have to be full volume. It can be a little whisper or even just the act of my mouth moving. There is something about praying out loud that keeps me on track and makes for a more meaningful prayer. I would encourage you to try this and see how you like it.
Prayer may not be something that you are going to be automatically comfortable with. It takes work. I think that one of the things that we as Christians need to do is to push ourselves to always try to get better at it. We cannot become complacent. We have a tendency to pray for the same things over and over again. It is good to bring your requests to God more than once, but make sure that it is something that you are thinking about. If you are praying the same words every time that you pray, you need to make sure that you are not just praying to make yourself feel better. There has to be intentionality about your prayer. Do not just say words for the sake of saying words. Jesus talks about this in Matthew 6:7-9, and then proceeds to teach us how to pray with the Lord’s Prayer.
If all of this feels overwhelming, remember that God is not sitting up in heaven judging your prayer to make sure that it is perfect. God judges the heart. Prayer is a learning process and I do not want to discourage anyone from continuing to work on their ability to pray. Work on it every day and it will become easier to have a conversation with your Heavenly Father.
By Brantley VanOverloop
Young Calvinists 