How many times have you heard someone say something along the lines of, “Your relationship with God should not be like checking off a box”? Or maybe you’ve said that yourself? Well I disagree. Checking off boxes is actually really important for Christian maturity. Let me explain.
Now I can understand the knee-jerk reaction to the idea of “To-Do List Christianity”. Obviously, if you and I were to spend quality time as friends, you wouldn’t want me to spend time with you to just “get a chore out of the way”. You wouldn’t want my attitude toward you to be without any care or interest. You would want our time together to be relaxed, meaningful, and enjoyable.
The problem, however, is that it takes time to build that deep, intimate connection with God. And that connection cannot be built if you don’t already have a habit of coming to God regularly. If you only spend time with God when it’s relaxed, meaningful, and enjoyable, then you’re hardly ever gonna spend time with Him! So when you’re starting out, don’t focus on quality. Focus on quantity.
I would much rather you spend 5 minutes a day with God for 6 days straight than to spend a single 30-minute session with God once a week. When you’re starting a new habit. Make it easy. Make it ridiculously easy. And your goal should be to check it off your to-do list every day. If you’re not able to do it every day, then it’s too hard. Make it even easier and less stressful.
Then once you’ve established the rhythm of an easy habit every day, then you can slowly build it up to 6 minutes a day. And then 7 minutes. And so on and so forth. But if you try going for an hour a day from the get-go, you’re gonna lose momentum, crash, and burn out. So you gotta be patient. The quality will come. But you have to focus on quantity first.
Think of a deep, meaningful connection with God like a fire. And think of the habit of spending time with God like the fireplace. As you slowly increase the size of your fireplace, the size of your fire can grow along with it. But if you try to start a big fire without a big fireplace, you’re gonna run out of log real quick!
Photo from Jakub Żerdzicki
