One of the Godliest men I have ever known – a man named J.B. Hunt – once told me he had read through the Bible start to finish at least eleven times throughout his life. So I asked him how he did that.
And his answer was not what most people would expect.
He said, “Well, I spend a lot of time on the toilet, and I keep my Bible on the back of the toilet. So every time I go to the bathroom, I would read a little bit out of the Bible. And you do that, it doesn’t even take a year.”
I said, “I have to try that.”
That may not sound like the kind of quiet time that makes people feel like members of the Spiritual Elite. But that is exactly the point. J.B. was emblematic of what I like to call a just-do-it spirituality. He was a normal guy, but he was a normal guy who radiated the goodness of the Lord. And one of the reasons for that is because he had figured out something a whole lot of us need to figure out:
Spending a short time with God consistently will grow you more than spending a long time with Him occasionally.
But here’s the thing we have to understand about our regular time with the Lord: it has to start small.
Our relationship with God starts small and then grows.
We have to talk about this, because if we don’t, then every single one of us is going to make the same mistake. We’re going to say, “Oh my gosh, I’m already 24. I’m already 31. I’m already 52. I’m already 75. I am so far behind in my walk with the Lord. I’ve got to go do some spiritual steroids.”
We’re going to try to do some Olympic-level devotional time each day, and we’re going to feel like members of the Spiritual Elite for the week and a half we stick with it. Then we’re going to completely fall off the horse and be so down on ourselves that we won’t pray, won’t open our Bibles, won’t even show up to church for like two months.
All because we have higher standards for our spiritual life than God Himself actually has for us.
And so, if that’s you, then here’s what I genuinely think the Lord wants me to tell you: lower your standards.
One of the best books that I’ve read over the past few years is Atomic Habits by James Clear. James Clear talks about something called the two-minute rule. And the two-minute rule essentially comes down to this: you want to start a habit in a version that is so small you’ll actually do it.
The two-minute rule says the only thing that really matters when you are trying to build a new habit is the first two minutes. If you get the first two minutes down, you’re fine.
The point of the two-minute rule is that there is basically zero resistance when it comes to a two-minute commitment to do something. It makes it almost easier to actually start than to avoid it. It reduces decision fatigue. You don’t have to plan your whole day around it. You have to plan two minutes around it. It makes consistency way more doable, and it makes intensity way less of a concern. It makes it easier to create momentum. It forces you to start small.
These small moments are the start. Over time, they can expand into something deeper, something longer, something bigger.
And that exact same thing is actually true when it comes to your time with the Lord.
Spending a short time with God consistently will grow you more than spending a long time with Him occasionally.
Psalm 1 puts this beautifully:
“His delight is in Yahweh’s instruction. On it he meditates day and night. He will be like a tree planted by the streams of water, that produces its fruit in its season, whose leaf also does not wither. Whatever he does shall prosper.”
That phrase “day and night” was a common phrase they would use to say every day, regularly, consistently, frequently. But it did not mean for a long time. It is describing a man who is watered by the Lord through regular, consistent, frequent time spent meditating on God’s word, regardless of whether it’s a few minutes or a few hours.
What happens to a lot of us is we want to jump straight from having basically no relationship with Him on a day-to-day basis to being, like, best friends. But closeness is something you build and cultivate the same way you did with every other relationship in your life.
And here’s what this means: you do not need to go home later and make a big plan for everything that you’re going to do over the next ten years to cultivate your spiritual life. You do not need to go live in a monastery where they literally wake you up every single hour so that you can pray one of the Psalms or something like that.
No.
What needs to happen is very simply that Scripture becomes part of your regular life rhythm. Spending time with your Father becomes part of your regular life rhythm.
And in order to actually do that, and then keep doing it, you need to start way smaller than you think you should.
Start seriously small.
Like, whatever you’re planning in your head right now, cut it in half.
This does not mean you section off as many of your minutes as you possibly can. What it means is you use the minutes you actually have, which is probably very few. Because even if it feels like it’s not enough right now, that little tiny bit of time you start spending with Him each day today will grow into a really deep and nourishing and close-knit relationship if you allow it to bloom.
Here’s the one-sentence breakdown that sums almost all of this up:
Consistency beats intensity. Period.
Why is consistency more important than intensity?
Because intensity shapes your feelings for a little while, but consistency shapes your identity forever.
Here’s something counterintuitive: the big hurdle is actually not how much time you spend on your quiet time, how long you spend with the Lord, how long you read Scripture each day. The actual hurdle is whether you do it each day or you don’t.
It is way, way easier to go from spending two minutes with the Lord each day to spending an hour with the Lord each day than it is to go from spending zero minutes with the Lord to spending two minutes with the Lord.
That sounds fake, but it’s actually true. If it was easy to intentionally spend two minutes with the Lord every day, you’d already be doing it.
Why aren’t you already spending at least two minutes with the Lord every day? You’re thinking, “Oh, it’s because I’m a bad Christian.” No it’s not. It’s because this is where the big hurdle actually is.
And the reason this is such a hurdle is because of the identity you’ve built around yourself. Right now the identity you’ve given yourself is some version of, “I am someone who doesn’t really spend any time with the Lord most of the time.” And every single day of your life, you live out of that identity.
But if you spend two minutes with the Lord every day, then your identity is, “I am someone who seeks the Lord every day.”
And if you spend two hours with the Lord every day, your identity is, “I am someone who seeks the Lord every day.”
There’s a difference in time, but there’s not a difference in identity.
The fundamental change that happens is the change in identity.
The shift isn’t, “Do I spend enough time with the Lord?” It is, “Am I someone who spends time with the Lord, or someone who avoids Him?”
And that is why the Psalms model what I like to call a just-do-it spirituality.
Just-do-it spirituality is the kind of spirituality where you don’t wait for any frills. You don’t wait for any big thing to happen. You don’t look for any one particular feeling or any one particular sign. You just jump into the swimming pool and start swimming. You dive in for the triathlon before you take swimming lessons.
We see exactly what this looks like in the Psalms:
“Yahweh, in the morning you shall hear my voice. In the morning I will lay my requests before you, and will watch expectantly.” (Psalm 5:3)
“Hear my cry, God. Listen to my prayer. From the end of the earth, I will call to you when my heart is overwhelmed. Lead me to the rock that is higher than I.” (Psalm 61:1–2)
“I cry with my voice to Yahweh. With my voice, I ask Yahweh for mercy. I pour out my complaint before him. I tell him my troubles.” (Psalm 142:1–2)
Because God is an actual person, who meets us where we are, in a relationship where we bring our real selves to a real God, the best spiritual practices are whichever ones you will actually do.
So make an extremely small commitment that has an extremely small on-ramp.
Open the Bible and read ten verses.
Pray one honest sentence every day.
Listen to one worship song attentively.
Those are just a few examples, but there are a million other options you can try. Your time with the Lord doesn’t have to look like anybody else’s. The only person it has to work for is you. The only person you have to please is the Lord, and by the time you show up, He’s already pleased with you.
There’s not a ticking clock. There’s not a timer. There’s not a gun to your head saying, “Do more.”
Your life with the Lord is something you are invited to that He is cultivating in you one piece at a time. It is a gift for you to unwrap, not a burden hanging around your neck.
And so the pathway into building a nourishing life with the Lord is not filled with complicated bells and whistles.
The pathway begins with just doing it.
Mount Zion Baptist Church - Louisburg, NC 
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