Then, because so many people were coming and going that they did not even have a chance to eat, He said to them, "Come with Me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest." Mark 6:31
A management company in Pittsburgh computes that in a life span of 75 years the average amount of time spent sleeping is 23 years; working, 19 years; in amusement activities, 9 years; traveling, 6 years; eating, 6 years; waiting in line, 5 years; cleaning the house, 4 years; preparing meals, 3 years; returning telephone calls, 2 years; searching for misplaced items, 1 year; opening junk mail, 8 months; sitting at red lights, 6 months; worshiping, 6 months; and praying, 19 days.
Our Lord set a day aside for us to rest and to spend time in His presence, giving Him thanks and praise. Christ took time to separate Himself from the daily routine for rest and prayer. Look again at the list of how we spend a life's worth of time. Prayer comes out at the bottom and Bible study not at all. We don't have time, we complain. We have time, it would seem, for less important activities. And if we followed Christ's example, we would make time by carving out a space for prayer and study and by arranging a significant time to be in the Word.
After all, time spent in prayer and with our Bibles is when we come face-to-face with our Redeemer.
PRAYER: Dear Christ, lead us to spend our time with You. Amen.
(Devotions from "The Abundant Life" copyright 1998, CPH. All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be printed, reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission of Concordia Publishing House. Permission is granted for one-time e-mailing of this link to a friend. For information on other devotional material, please contact CPH at 800-325-3040 or visit CPH at www.cph.org.)
Today's Bible Readings: Isaiah 53-55 Romans 10
To Download Devotion MP3 to your computer, right click here and select "Save Link As" or "Save Target As" or "Download Linked File As"