Tonight at church we looked at the topic of Time Spent with God. The message began with a short film that showed some of the things we do in a day (get dressed, use the bathroom, watch television) and the amount of time the average person takes to do each of these things (apparently the average person spends three hours a day watching tv and that adds up to nine years in a lifetime!). I'm thankful they didn't add up time spent online - I'm afraid that would've comprised more time than I'd care to admit.

Finally, the amount of time spent with God was added up and it was decided that the average person spends seven minutes a day having heart-to-heart time with God. That adds up to 45 days in a lifetime. That's it?

God is the creator of everything we know. He's the One who envisioned me before I was in my mother's womb. He has all the answers to all our questions about everything in existence. And he gets seven minutes a day?

I'm as guilty as anyone.  I do try to make a point of reading my Bible every morning and doing a short devotion. I pray in the morning and at meal times and before bed... but my mind wanders and I'm not always there as I plan the rest of my day or think about a conversation I've had or fret over the bills that need to be paid. If I gave that same kind of attention to the people in my life, or my work, or the cats, I wouldn't have too many people interested in being close to me, I'd be broke and living on the street (been there, done that!) and I'd have dead cats. The reality is that we make time for the things that are important to us and somehow we've decided that other things are more important than God. (And I wonder why I'm not moving at a better pace in my ministry.)

It's not always a conscious choice, but it happens when we feel pressured by the outside things of the world that need our attention. And when the pressure heats up, we might finally give God a little attention in a frantic prayer for help, but isn't it possible that some of those problems could have been avoided if we'd gone to the Source in the first place?

Somehow our days are already full. We only have twenty-four hours and we're already multi-tasking so few of us actually find that we have much free time... and this is without the added time for God. So maybe before we find time to add God to our schedule, we need to decide what we're going to take away from our schedule. After all, as Pastor Dan pointed out, He's not going to give us 25 hours just so we'll spend an hour with Him - we've already got 24 hours to work with!

Can you turn the computer off for ten minutes and chat with God?