Devotional Life

Recently my boss gave a book called Mentoring Paradigms by Edmund Chan. This is written in devotional style and very simple to read, but had lots to think about.

In one of the chapters called Three Arenas of Mentoring he talks about Devotional, Domestic and Developmental Life. His comments of Devotional Life struck me.

He says “Quiet time does not automatically become easier as one grows older. In fact, it becomes harder. Why? Because one can browse through God’s Word quickly and pick up a thought or two without much meditation and intimacy with God.”

He goes to say that we can have routine and discipline of having devotions without the encounter and the wonder. We can read God’s Word and miss the God of the Bible.

Quite powerful warnings! I shared this to a colleague. He has an interesting reflection too. He told me, God allows those dry times in our devotional life with God, to remind us that we need to depend on Him even in this area.

I need to keep this in mind as I grow older, now mid in 30s. To be able to learn new perspectives from the Bible, I change versions of the Bible occasionally. While in Bible school I got so used to NIV that I just know most of the words. Later I used Revised Standard Version for over two years. Now I switched to New Living Translation.

My desire is that a child-like curiosity and interest will continue to grow in mind in my daily study of God’s Word.