Do you get easily distracted or unfocused when you sit down to have your quiet times with God?
Don’t worry—it happens to us too…
Having quality time is important for any relationship, and getting that time with God makes all the difference in the depth and intimacy level of your walk with Him. It’s just like any other relationship—you‘ll get out what you put in to it, so if you don’t invest the time to spend with God, your walk with Him isn’t going to be as strong as it could be.
If we want to grow in our relationships with God, we have to fight to get daily time with him through prayer and reading his word. Remember—prayer is us talking to God, and reading the Bible is Him talking to us. A true relationship is a two way street. We need both prayer and Bible reading in order to cultivate and strengthen our walks with God.
But getting daily time with God usually isn’t the hardest part—it’s getting focused time with God that can be challenging. We can easily get distracted by the day-to-day busyness of life, whether it’s getting the kids ready for school, taking the dog out for a walk, getting ready for that big work meeting, cooking dinner for your family, studying for a final exam…. you get the idea.
Life only moves forward and it can move pretty fast. Rarely does it ever “slow down”.
So here are 7 tips that have helped me over the years go from completed distracted to fully focused and devoted in my daily quiet times with God!
1. Set your mind to do it.
No matter what you want to accomplish, it all starts with your mindset. If you don’t have the right mindset, then you’re not likely to succeed.
Imagine trying to run a 5k race. If you start the race thinking, “I’m not going to make it,” then you’re probably not going to make it… You might start to psych yourself out, which could impact how you run the race. But if you were to go in thinking you might win, you’ll do everything possible to make that happen. You’ll pace yourself, push yourself through any tiredness, and you’ll be laser focused on the end goal.
Taking captive of our thoughts and making them obedient to Christ (2 Corinthians 10:5), and having the right mindset, is everything. So when it comes to having consistent, daily times with God, the first thing you need to do is set your mind to do it.
If having focused time with God means that you have to wake up early, then set your mind on waking up early. If it means that you have to get more disciplined with your time, then set your mind on getting disciplined. If it means you just have to actually believe you can get that focused time with God, then set your mind on believing it!
Setting our minds on things above is everything. You can do this. You can get the focused time you want with God. You just have to set your mind to it!
2. Have time with God first thing in the morning.
Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed.
mark 1:35
As Christians, we should imitate Jesus, and according to the above Scripture, Jesus woke up very early in the morning to spend time with God!
Waking up early in the morning can be difficult, especially if you already have a packed morning. I admit, I’ve struggled to have my time with God first thing in the morning. When I miss that time in the morning, I often tell myself that I’ll get that time in later on in the day, when I’m more awake and not on my way to work…
But when I hold off on getting time with God first thing in the morning, two things usually happen:
- My day doesn’t start off the right way mentally or spiritually. I find that I’m more anxious, get more overwhelmed as the day goes on, and I’m just not in the right frame of mind. And being in a funk in the morning puts me in a bad spot spiritually where it can be all down hill from there.
- My day gets progressively busier and I can’t find the interrupted time with God that I wanted. If I don’t start my day off with God first thing, the likelihood of me doing it later on in the day is really slim. My day just gets busier and it’s hard to carve out that extra time… and by the time my day winds down in the evening, I can be too tired to even look at any Scriptures.
So having your time with God first thing in the morning is actually really important. It sets the tone of your day and ensures that you even get time with God before your day gets too chaotic. Besides, if Jesus did it first thing in the morning, that should be enough of a reason for us to imitate him!
3. Don’t use your phone as your Bible.
I know—we use our phones for everything. Sadly, it’s usually the first thing we check in the morning (especially if we use it as our alarms), and it’s often the last thing we check at night. We check our phones at every text, notification, email, or phone call that comes in, and we even use it just to check the time! We may even have our favorite Scripture on our lock screens as our constant daily Scriptural reminder!
Admit it—we’re all addicted to our phones to some degree…
Which is precisely why, if you want to have more focused time with God, you need to put the phone down and pick up an actual Bible.
Sure, it may be easier to find certain Scriptures by using your phone, but what happens when that email, text, or notification interrupts you right in the middle of your time with God? Are you really going to be able to resist checking it? Even if you can resist the urge to read or respond, you got to admit that a random message popping up diverts your attention in that moment…
And even if you’ve convinced yourself that a notification popping up in the middle of your Bible reading won’t distract you, whose to say you won’t get caught up searching random things on Google In the middle of your quiet time?
So put your phone on silent and grab a hard copy of the Bible so you can read God’s word distraction free!
4. Block out time in your calendar like it’s a meeting.
I don’t like the idea of “penciling in God” in my schedule, because my schedule should revolve around God, and not the other way around (God shouldn’t be revolving around my schedule). Sometimes we can feel like our schedules are just so busy on the day-to-day, which makes it challenging to find that focused time with God. But the truth is, if you’re too busy to dedicate time to in your schedule to God, then you’re just too busy…
So if your schedule is very packed each day, consider reorganizing it so you can set out a blocked time to be with God.
The purpose of blocking out time for God as though it were a meeting isn’t so your quiet times can suddenly become more “corporate” or “business-like”. It’s so you and others can honor that time and it can be protected.
If I have a meeting on my calendar for work, for instance, my coworkers know that they can’t just schedule a meeting on top of that time. That block of time is untouchable. If I have a date set with my husband, my friends know that they can’t just schedule a hang out time with me at that time. When we schedule things on our calendars, the time becomes a bit more protected than if we hadn’t scheduled it. It gives us something to adhere to and it also forces others to respect that time.
So schedule in a set time with God. Treat that time in your calendar like it’s a meeting—protect it, and call others to protect that time as well, so you can be focused on worshiping our Lord.
5. Find the right location.
We mentioned this in our post about how to pray like Jesus, but it also applies to getting that uninterrupted time with God—you need to find your spot.
Your spot doesn’t have to be a secluded place—maybe you can focus well in a coffee shop. It also doesn’t have to be out in the woods or overlooking the ocean—maybe you can focus well in a library. You just need to find the right spot where you can focus on the Word of God.
For me, I like to spend my time with God at a desk by the window. The desk faces the window, so anytime I look up, I’m automatically staring outside. It allows me to be distraction free from anything going on behind me in my home. It’s also in a quiet part of our home, so I can be extra focused on meditating and praying to God.
Wherever your ideal location is to have some uninterrupted, quiet time with God, go there! It may switch up over time, but it’s always important to have your place.
6. Get a Bible you can understand.
If you’ve read our Beginner’s Guide on How to Read and Understand the Bible, you’ll know how important it is to have a Bible translation that you can actually understand.
Many of us are familiar with the King James Version (KJV), but we don’t actually understand it. I mean, unless you’re familiar with Shakespeare, the KJV can go over your head and it can be difficult to connect with the heart of the Scriptures because you’re too caught up with the thee’s, thou’s, and thy’s…
There are many translations of the Bible that are in more modern day language that would be great to try out. If you’re a beginner to Bible reading, we recommend using the NIV version.
There’s also different types of Bibles that you can use to aid you in your Bible studies. You could choose a Life Application Bible, a Couples Bible, a Women’s Bible, or even a Study Bible. Whatever helps you!
Ultimately, you want to use a Bible that you can understand so it will help you connect with the word of God at a heart level. This is what will help you have more focused times with God—actually being able to understand what you’re reading.
7. Switch up how you spend your time with God.
Spending time with God doesn’t have to look a particular way—it’s what you make it!
Perhaps your quiet time with God looks a bit more formal, where you sit down at a desk, pray, and study out a Scripture. While it’s important to dig deep into the Scriptures and get that “formalized” time with God, every time you spend with Him doesn’t have to be that way. Spending time with God is about having a relationship with Him, and just like with any other relationship, you can’t do the same thing every single day…
To get focused time with God, sometimes you have to switch up how you spend time with him! I personally like to have those “formal” quiet times with God, but I also like to go on prayer walks or pray with a sister in Christ. I’ve also done more creative things in my times with God, like singing worship songs (despite my inability to carry a tune…) or writing out a poem (psalm) to God.
It’s important to read our Bible daily, but sometimes spending time with God can look a bit different! Switching things up keeps your walk with God exciting, and it can also keep you focused on Him.
Getting focused time with our God makes all the difference! Hopefully the above tips will help you find that undistracted time you desire. If you have any tips that weren’t highlighted in this post for how you get that focused time with God, feel free to share them in the comments below!
1 comment