Very wise words, Phil.  We can get so into the external number of minutes,
etc., that we forget about the substance.

Peggy

At 05:02 PM 9/3/2004 -0600, you wrote:
>I am likely the black sheep of the family, as they say, when it comes to
>daily Bible reading, a daily prayer time, or even having family devotions.
>I went for several years spending a minimum of 90 minutes each day and
>dividing my time between 45 minutes of prayer time and 45 minutes of Bible
>reading.  I stopped doing that after reading through the Bible 108 times.
>Now I am up to 114 times so it has taken me about 22 or 23 years to read the
>Bible through just 6 times or so.  I have tried every prayer scheme I have
>ever heard about including Larry Lee's one hour per day using the Lord's
>prayer, so called, as the guide for that one hour.  I went for a period of
>time praying two hours every day.  Interestingly enough, over 20 years ago,
>the Lord revealed things to me about prayer which took years before I was
>willing to give up my own ways and pray without ceasing.  That one scared me
>big time.  I mean, I was already praying a lot for a Baptist boy, I figured,
>so how could anybody pray without ceasing.  Once the Lord showed me and I
>was able to lay aside the traditions of men, and once I got over feeling
>guilty not spending X number of minutes, or hours, each day praying and
>reading the Bible, I began to realize my relationship with the Lord was to
>be natural and not regimented or scripted according to man's standards.  Now
>before you blow a gasket, I am not against things like praying a scheduled
>amount of time each day.  I am not against reading the Bible every day.  I
>am not against a lot of things but I have come to realize that such things
>are highly personal in nature and is between that person and the Lord.  My
>folks did not have daily devotions with us growing up and my dad was a
>preacher.  They did read Bible stories to us almost every night and on
>Sunday mornings, we used Our Daily Bread.  I jumped in and out of this
>conflict when my kids were growing up.  Sometimes we had daily devotions for
>periods of time but mostly we did not.  My best friends growing up were a
>family of five children.  They had family devotions every single night of
>the week without fail.  I considered this family more Godly than any family
>I knew.  Most of the kids grew up and do not serve the Lord at all today.
>In my humble opinion, yes, I can be humble some times but it is certainly
>difficult for me, in my humble opinion, as I was saying, first you have to
>decide what makes you spiritual.  I went round and round with the Lord about
>this for a long time as I prayed each day asking that question until I
>finally got the answer He gave to me now over 20 years ago.  But that's for
>another message.  I think what is much more spiritually profitable is a
>study guide where Scripture, and doctrine, are studied systematically.
>Daily devotions, daily prayer, or daily Bible reading certainly have their
>value but a rut is a grave with both ends kicked out of it.
>
>Phil.

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