Are You Regularly Spending Time with God?

October 9, 2024

If everyone reads this post really quietly, my wife may not see it. And if she does, I’m going to get a spanking when I get home.

Seriously, my wife is the greatest. She reads everything I write before anyone else does, so she has seen this picture and approved this post. Or at least allowed it to go out. And I am the author, so whatever goes out is on me.

I’d like to say I took this after returning home from a long vacation, but I can’t say that for sure. I just looked up one day and there it was. And in all fairness, my research revealed that spiders can spin a web in 30 – 60 minutes, so I could go out to cut the grass and find a web upon my return. And, I haven’t seen one like the picture in a long, long time.

Now, I’ve written other posts with spider web images. And a spider web in just about any other location is just a spider web. I could talk about their beauty, intricacies, design, or any other web characteristic.

But a spider web draped across your living room ceiling is as they call it, “a horse of a different color.”

Are You Regularly Spending Time with God? #hope #joy #writingcommunity Share on X

Honestly, we don’t have a scheduled “walk throughout the house looking for spider webs” task. It’s one of those chores that happens when we have extra time, or when company is coming over, or when you just happen to spot one getting started. It doesn’t take long to walk each room with the long-handled fluffy thing and hit the corners, light fixtures, and places a spider web is most likely to show up. So, why don’t I get the long-handled fluffy thing and make the effort to knock down the webs before they show up? My logic is there’s nothing to knock down until they do show up. If I do it before they’re there, then what am I actually doing? Wasting time, I’d say.

But am I actually wasting time?

Not really. By taking the time to regularly dust in some of those hard-to-reach places, I’m removing anything that may have started that I don’t even see. By removing the webs, no matter how small, I’m discouraging the spider to return. Now, I do agree with one thing I read about webs in your home. It said, if you have lots of webs, then you don’t have a dusting problem, you have a spider problem!

I think the same thing applies to our walk with the Lord.

It is too easy to put off praying, reading our Bibles, and meditating on God’s Word until we sense we need it. We may look at it like a cobweb. I don’t think many of us would say, “If nothing is happening in my life at the moment that feels like it needs spiritual attention, then I’m just wasting time.” Of course we wouldn’t.

But what we might show, by our actions if not our thoughts, is that all the other things we’re doing are more important than spending time with God. But little by little, just as a week going by and suddenly there’s a web draped across your ceiling, we find that we’ve lost touch with God.

We may wonder why we’re suddenly doing things not pleasing to Him, or contrary to how we know we should be living. The longer we go like this, the more likely we are to get farther away from the Father. The best way to stay close to the Lord is to regularly read His Word.

I’ll leave you with this verse from Psalm 119.

“I seek you with all my heart; do not let me stray from your commands. I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you.” (Psalm 119, 10-11, NIV)