I know I’ve been on this topic before, but I think it has been a while and it’s on my mind this morning. That’s because I had to make some decisions today and I didn’t make all the best ones. I woke up extra early again and immediately started thinking about things that should be a part of my daily life.

Exercise is one of those things, and I did go for my morning walk once my weak objections were inconveniently removed. What I didn’t do was immediately prepare to sit down and talk to the Lord afterwards, which I think is what He wanted me to do with the extra time. I was near the end of a good book and I didn’t want to stop listening so I turned on the coffee and spent most of the morning on the recliner.

The other thing that occupied my thoughts as sleep deserted me this morning was the amount of time I spend in prayer. Often that takes the form of writing for me. I write to God in my journal because it helps me think and focuses my mind on listening for His inspiration. I thought about the fact that I haven’t done much of that lately.

I live out of my Outlook inbox. I don’t really use the task list because even if it’s displayed at the side of the screen it might as well be in another room since I still have to make an effort to go to that part of the screen with my screen reader software and read what’s there. It works better for me to create little notes to myself as discussion posts that sit in my inbox and are organized by due date and priority. Between emails that serve as prompts and my little notes my life is organized at home and at work.

Because I like to write and find it hard to make time for it, I added a post to prompt me to make blog entries. When I manage to get one out I reset the follow-up date for the next day. This morning I realized that I had given more priority to blogging than to personal prayer time. So, add another little note to the inbox and make it high priority?

But Lord, if I do that then I’ll be thinking about things all the time. I’ll be faced with the wasted hours and less than edifying pursuits like that novel I just finished and I might have to give them up! The plain truth is I don’t want to. If I start really spending quality time with You every day I might have to live the way You want me to instead of the way I want to!

Well, I guess that settles it. I have to do it. I would hope that with time what I want and what He wants become closer to the same thing. It feels a little wrong to schedule God in between updating my bank records and checking on a prescription, but if that’s what it takes to keep my focus where it needs to be then not doing so would be the wrong thing.

We will do what is really important to us, even if it conflicts with what we might prefer to do. If it’s really important to us we will make time for it. That is why when I hear someone say to me “I didn’t have time,” I hear, “Something else was more important to me.” Time is a limited resource and the something else may have deserved the higher priority, but “I didn’t have time” is rarely a true statement. If I believe that time spent with the One who saved my life is important then I will do whatever is necessary to make that time, even if it means I have to schedule it.