• I don’t want to be legalistic 
• Actually, I know quite a bit of the Bible, so I don’t have to keep reading it
• It can be selfish to take time out on my own
• There are so many other things to do
• I don’t always get a ‘blessing’
• It can be a good thing to take a break

and so on. 
The problem is, even though it’s very easy to come up with a list like that, none of those reasons are very sound. They are what I call ‘headline reasons’ – they give a superficial reason for not going to my chair – but as soon as I think about them, get behind the headline, they’re not so convincing.For instance:

• I don’t want to be legalistic 
  • Legalism is about ticking boxes. Habits that are driven from the right motives are never legalistic. 
• Actually, I know quite a bit of the Bible, so I don’t have to keep reading it 
  • Really?!
• It can be selfish to take time out on my own 
  • Is it selfish to take time to eat/sleep etc?
• There are so many other things to do 
  • Jesus was incredibly busy, but he always found time to be alone with his Father
• I don’t always get a ‘blessing’ 
  • Which might mean I don’t always feel good, or nothing happens in the first two minutes
• It can be a good thing to take a break 
  • From the privilege of meeting with the Creator of the universe??

Now, such an exercise can be helpful, but I think we need something more than arguing that the reasons why not doing something are wrong. That tends to merely reinforce what we already knew – that our bad motives are bad.
What I need is a positive motive for sending time in my chair.
So here’s a few thoughts:
Firstly, we’re called 1 Cor 1:9. We are saved in order that we might have fellowship, that is ‘sharing our lives in common’ or ‘becoming friends’, with God. One of the works of the Holy Spirit is to turn our hearts towards God, and so the more time we spend with him, the more we will want to spend time with him.
Secondly, we’re invited. ‘Come to me…’ says Jesus (Matthew 11:28, John 7:37). We can come before God’s throne freely – even boldly. Hebrews 4:16, Ephesians 3:11-12. So we we sit down in our ‘chairs’, it is in response to an invitation, which means we know that God wants us there. He wants us to meet with him.
Finally, we’re incredibly privileged. The presence of God is a fearsome place for sinners, see Isaiah 6:1-5, especially Isaiah’s reaction in verse 5. Simply – he is holy and we are not. But Jesus has dealt with the barrier that prevented us entering his presence, to the extent that we can now call God our Father. In Luke 11:2, Jesus says “When you pray, say Father…”. He has made us his sons and daughters 2 Cor 6:18, see also Romans 8:14-17. 
So our chairs are a place of calling, special invitation and incredible privilege.
And who’d want to miss that?

But a relationship with God is not solely a matter of a short time with him, it needs to be something that carries through into the whole day.

So I want to share three things that may help to take what we learn in our chairs out of our chairs and into the rest of the day.

Meditation

Psalm 119:97
Oh how I love our law!  
It is my meditation all the day.
We are encouraged throughout the Bible to meditate on the Word of God. Notice it is ‘on’ something. It has nothing to do with emptying our minds and/or sitting in weird positions. It’s better described as ‘thoughtful deliberation’.
It is obviously something we can do in our chair, as we think over things we’re reading in the Word, and bring them to God in prayer.
But it’s also something we can do throughout the day, as we recall a verse or a thought from our time in our chair.
There are various ways we can meditate. If it’s a verse, we can repeat it, emphasising different words each time. Or if we’ve read a historical story, we can imagine ourselves in the story as one of the characters, or a bystander, and think about what we might see, touch, taste, smell etc. It’s also good to ask questions – what does a passage teach about God? Why did God include that verse/passage? How would the original readers have understood it? How might it apply today?
Some of this may involve more study, but it’s always good to have the Word of God going through our minds.
Paul writes:
Philippians 4:8 whatever is true, whatever is honourable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. 
Thinking is an important part of the Christian life – we are called to worship God with our minds, and to the transformed by the renewal of our minds. But it must be centred on, and in submission to, the Word of God.

There’s much more to say on this (books have been written on meditation!) but this is just to introduce the idea. And you can always look at the word ‘meditate’ in the Psalms!

Journalling

I have to say I’m not great at this. For a few years now, I’ve kept a daily journal of what happens in the day. I started on one holiday so I could remember what we did each day, then carried it on. It proves useful when we want to find out when we went somewhere, or when someone visited us for instance.
But it’s just factual (in the main).
Journalling in a way that relates to our chair is recording the words, impressions, meditations from our time in the Word.

While journalling is normally associated with physical notebooks, I use an app called Day One. For me, the advantage of this is simply having it available (it syncs across phone and laptop).

It also has the ability to keep more than one journal, so I’ve got a ‘Devotional’ journal alongside the main one. Once I came to the realisation that it wasn’t necessary write in it every day, I found that I am putting things in it that have meaning, rather than feeling I’ve got to write something.
Once again, this is something we can do in our chair – but having it on my phone means I can jot thoughts down throughout the day. Bit of a link with meditation!

Of course, there are two sides to journalling. Obviously writing in the journal in the first place. The act of doing that can be really helpful in articulating our thoughts.
But it’s only of real benefit if we read it! And here is it’s great value. Looking back over a week’s notes can often help us see things that God has been saying to us. The same goes for longer periods of course. (The app has an ‘on this day’ feature, but that only kicks in after a year!)

Scripture Memory

Some of you will know that I’m a big fan of Scripture Memory.I’d not long been a Christian when I was sat in a room full of Christians who seemed to know the Bible off by heart. Turned out that they didn’t, but were all working through a system of memorising verses, and were testing and quoting to each other.I asked if I could do this. Apparently that was an unusual request!At the time, the system was small cards in a leather wallet. The fatter the wallet the more spiritual you were. No, not really! Just meant you knew more verses!But by reviewing and meditating on them, they became real – and over the years God has used them many times. when talking to people, when praying, when speaking.

These days I use an app. Yes – another one!
It’s called Bible Memory.It’s very helpful because it automatically schedules review. Review is the key to learning, and keeping, verses. Say them over and over again till they stick – and they’re still there much later.With a new verse, Bible Memory get you to type the first letter of each word, then removes every other word, then removes all the words – so you just type in the first letter. (You can of course alter this so you type in every letter, but the first letter only approach seems to work well). The new verse comes up for review a day later, and as you repeat it, the review interval gets longer – assuming you get it more than 90% right!
I find all this really helpful. I’ve re-learned my original verses now in the ESV (English Standard Version) having converted from the RSV (Revised Standard Version). That’s some 65 verses, and have started adding new ones.
The app allows you to share progress with a friend or group of friends.

I sometimes check my verses when in my chair, but mostly throughout the day.

If you’ve never done this before, I’d recommend this app. And some starter verses (taken from the Navigators’ Lessons on Assurance):

And finally

A couple of other points – as someone who teaches I have to work at avoiding what Charles Spurgeon called ‘ministeriology’. He was saying that anyone who ministers the Word must have time for themselves and not think that every time they open a Bible it’s for ministry. But there’s a balance. If I teach something that does not have significance to me it can be dry and academic.
The other point is that our walks with the Lord are not solo. Time alone with God is vitally important, but so is meeting him in the context of the congregation and the group. Being under the ministry of the Word and talking about it with others. 
And then there’s a friend. Having a close friend to share with is enormously helpful.

And most important of all:
Proverbs 18:24 but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother 
And that is the Holy Spirit – who guides us into all the truth and who brings the Word to life. Otherwise this is all just mechanical.
But with him it is life

Matthew 4:4/Deuteronomy 8:3 
Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. 

I use a monthly magazine called TableTalk (from Ligonier Ministries)*. It has a daily ‘thought’ for 5 days a week, with a separate devotional for the weekends.
For me that’s ideal as weekends always seem to have a different routine. It also gives me chance to catch up if I’ve missed one during the week.
The daily thought comes from working through a book of the Bible. Currently we’re going through Hebrews. It’s probably better described as a mini-study, as it generally gives some context to the passage together with any background or further explanation.

Here’s an example page:

As it’s a magazine, it also has a monthly theme, with several articles relating to that theme, and some additional articles on top of all that. I tend to read those later.
This month’s theme is The Twentieth Century.
Previous themes have been:

• Misunderstood Doctrines
• Fear
• The Parables of Jesus
• Finding the Will of God

So you can see it’s quite varied.

As I said in an earlier post, we each have to find what works for us. And for me this is perfect! I’ve been using it for many years now.
Although it’s available on-line, I prefer the printed version – it’s distraction-free and encourages me to open my Bible!

There’s always a ‘Coram Deo’ section (it means before the face of God) which is more application-focussed. This is important as otherwise there’s a danger of just building up knowledge. Knowledge is of course important – vital in fact if we’re to understand anything. But it’s not an end in itself. For instance, knowing the facts of the Gospel is critical to our becoming a Christian. But to be saved we need to put our faith in those facts.
So the Coram Deo section is included to look at what we might do with the knowledge we’ve gained. Sometimes that involves a change in our behaviour, or attitudes. Other times we may have gleaned something new about the character of work of God, which in turn drives us to praise and worship.
And that is the purpose of Scripture:

• It makes us ‘complete, equipped for every good work (2 Timothy 3:17)
• It ‘builds us up’ (Acts 20:32)
• It ‘sanctifies us’ (John 15:3)

And so on!

We need to go deep into God’s Word because that’s what he’s given us so that we can know about him – who he is and what he’s done; and about ourselves, and how we are to respond to him and live before him.
There’s no single way of doing this – each of us will find different methods. What is important is that we spend time with God, and grow in our walk with him.

* Note there are many other daily devotionals such as Every Day With Jesus, Daily Light etc. as well as those on the YouVersion app

‘In my chair’ is a response to our Pastor’s challenge of a couple of years ago “Where’s your chair?’ It’s simply where and how do I spend time alone with God.
The most important thing is to discover what works for you. I’m sharing here what works for me – I hope you will find it useful!

And if you’ve never done this kind of thing before, start somewhere!
Once a week is better than never, once a day is better than once a week.
But start with something achievable.

I (usually) try to get about half an hour in the morning, and then odd moments throughout the day.
A time with God is a matter of prayer and the Word. Of course, all you really need is a Bible and somewhere quiet. And there have been times when that’s worked fine. But much of the time I need something that holds me accountable – even if only to myself!

This post is all about prayer, which the core of a devotional time. And I have to say, I don’t find prayer easy. Something that’s helped me recently is an app called PrayerMate.

PrayerMate is essentially a collection of lists.
These lists can be created from scratch, or you can import them – I use a mixture of both.
You can then choose whether to pray from these lists every day, or to have them rotate so that you only pray from a certain number of lists each day.
I use a mixture – again!
Every day I use an imported list called Praying the Bible (reduced). This simply gives me a Psalm to read and pray through every day – which is just brilliant! This is pure devotion – expressing emotions, of every shade, to God. It always comes up first which means I think about God first, rather than going straight to me requests.

If you’re wondering – the (reduced) version has one Psalm each day, so goes through all the Psalms every 5 months. The non-reduced version goes through them all in one month. But that’s way too much every day!

My second daily list is Special – for things that need praying for every day.
I’m just working on another list called Quick – where I can quickly jot down things I want to pray about, knowing they’ll be there in my prayer time.
I have five other lists that rotate so that I get three of them every day. They are:
My Walk with God (prayers for my growth)
Family
Friends
Church
World Mission (this is another imported list)

Here are some screenshots

PrayerMate is really flexible. so I can change it every now and then.
(There are also ways a church can create a feed – still looking into that).
The good thing is that all my prayer lists are together.

There are a couple of challenges – firstly the discipline of actually doing it, but that’s the case whatever method I might use; the second is the fact that this is an app. It sits on my phone, which has other apps on it. So there’s another level of discipline, which is to ignore whatever else the phone might be doing to get my attention.

PrayerMate provides a simple and really useful structure. I can come to this and know there will be something for me to pray about, without having to think about it first. And once it’s set up, there are few distractions, so I’m able to focus.

This app has helped me no end. I’ve not used all of its capabilities yet, but what have got is a simple way of keeping my prayer lists in one place, and I am actually praying!

In the next post I want to look at how I spend more time in the Word.