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.