ShiftSample

Who doesn’t love a checklist? To be able to cross off things you’ve accomplished, and watch the list dwindle down until you’ve completed everything you’ve wanted for the day. There’s a rush of satisfaction knowing that you did all you could and achieved everything you needed to. It’s the feeling of using the day well - that you’ve fulfilled a sort of commitment to yourself. It’s almost as though you’ve earned any free time that you may now have.

If we aren’t careful, we can start to view our relationship with God as just another checklist. Prayed as soon as you got up this morning? Cross it off the list. Made sure to do your morning devotional before you left for work? Another check mark. Instead of a relationship, we’ve made our time with Jesus something to get through or created a list of what we should do in order to reach a new level of relationship, something that we can measure through the things that we do instead of the time spent together.

What can you do today to make sure that the time spent with God is focused on relationship and not just getting through the things we know we should do when we spend time together? What does it look like to spend time with Him without any checklist or agenda?