Last week I talked about my devotional time: habits I have developed to help me stay connected to God and allow Him to pour into me.

Relationships work the same way. The more time they get, the better they do…and the most demanding and important relationship we have is our marriage. The question is, how much time are you giving it? Or maybe more importantly, how much QUALITY time are you giving it?

So many people end up spending all their married time with other people in the room–the kids, the neighbors, friends, etc. One-on-one time is crucial to a good marriage, and not simply a single 2 hour date night each week–good time. Here’s how Stacy and I are trying to make it work at present:

1. Date Night – we have one fun night out at a restaurant each week…usually Chick-Fil A. We don’t require nice food–just a comfortable table where we can sit face-t0-face to talk for hours. Believe it or not, CFA refills our drinks and leaves us alone for the majority of our 2-3 hour conversation each week.
2. The daily, “how was your day?” talk. Work can be stressful. Stress is better when it has been vented. Stacy and I are each other’s listening partners each evening. Each person gets a chance to talk about the good, the bad, and the ugly from the day. Confidentiality and HIPPA laws do not apply in our marriage. We know that anything we share is never leaving our partner’s lips.
3. Our Day for Us – We try our best to keep Saturdays free from too many plans. These are days we try to stay home together and simply enjoying doing life: cleaning up the house.
4. Weekends together – So often as a married couple living away from family, we have made all our travel and vacation time about seeing family. Stacy and I started taking long weekends several times a year just for us: Labor Day, sometime in the spring, and a short break after Christmas are times that we try to escape for 3-4 days. We don’t have to go somewhere extravagant, we just need to get away from the chores of housework and enjoy some recreation together.
5. Recreation – Stacy and I have run together, played tennis against other, swam together, and biked as a couple. Some of these were epic failures at first–figuring out that one person’s interest was a disaster for the other. But having fun and getting exercise are priorities for us–so we try to find something to do together. This winter we trained together for a half-marathon, and we both made it 😉

Dr. Willard Harley recommends 15 hours of quality conversation should take place between husband and wife each week in his excellent marriage book, His Needs, Her Needs. That seems impossible at first, but I can tell you from experience, that the weeks where Stacy and I share 15 hours of conversation are good weeks for us as a couple. I recommend giving it a try.

God’s love must pour into my life, or I will cease to have any love to share with others. Humans are not very deep wells for love, and human love is not all that great compared to God’s love. “We love because He first loved us” is what we are told. (1 John 4:19)

That’s the hard part about being a pastor, you do a lot of pouring out–and if God’s not pouring in, you dry up.

Here’s a simple description of what I do to make sure I’m being poured into:

1. Bible Reading – I’ve got a YouVersion reading plan that I read at least 5 days a week. (Two days are blank each week) Maybe its just me, but reading on a screen is easier than reading a printed Bible, and I always have the plan with me on my phone, for times when I don’t get near a computer. HOWEVER, I can get lazy and just check off the list if I’m not careful. So i make it a discipline to write out my thoughts on a few verses every couple of days. I even share my thoughts with the public via YouVersion’s notes system: https://www.youversion.com/users/patrick_fowler1/notes
2. A Simple Devotional Thought – I read a quarter page devotional the moment I wake up each day–it’s called the daily bread. Its free in print, its available on all the smartphones, and its pretty good. It’s one way that I read someone else’s minisermon or thoughts from Scripture each day. It gets me thinking about God from the first moment of my day–which is crucial for me.
3. Reading– I get a TON out of books, so I always have at least 2 books in progress at any time. I read a random group of books. Some on how to do ministry, some fun fiction books, and some devotional books by authors like my favorite, the great Max Lucado. Currently I am reading Lucado’s Cast of Characters and Steven Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, and they are both phenomenal.
4. Prayer–I’m not a great prayer, but I take one day each week and REALLY pray for the needs of the people I know. I start the day by meeting a prayer group at a local church–something I found out about randomly. These guys get me in a spirit of prayer and teach me to pray by how they do it. They also keep me from sleeping in on Tuesdays. Then I pray for a while on my own. It makes me much more attuned to what God’s up to.
5. Relationships – I’ve got a small group that I meet with on Tuesdays, and a few friends I meet with specifically to talk about how I am doing spiritually. Those things keep me grounded. I need someone to look me in the face and ask if I’m doing ok spiritually.
6. Sunday Sermons. Often times I am not able to worship during the standard church services on Sundays. I show up early for setup and stay late for teardown. So what do I do? Haha, I’m lucky. I get the sermon from Chris on Thursdays each week. I get to hear his message and be prayerfully cheering him on as he delivers it on Sundays. By then, I have had to think through it twice. It’s great. And it challenges me to show up on Sunday morning living out what He challenges oneChurch to live out in the days following. Some people accuse Sundays of being shallow…but I have yet to hear a message at oneChurch that I did not need to live better than I did before. I may have heard the message before, but that doesn’t mean I am fully living it out yet. It takes me a few tries to get it. How about you?

Whew, that list sounds really long. All in all, this is my best case scenario plan. Some weeks i can’t meet with others in the regular meetings. Some weeks I get lazy in my reading. Some times I am just plain busy and these things suffer. The key however, is my spiritual life is a priority. I do MOST  of these each week–and God gets to  pour into my life. I love it. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

The way I see it–this is my most important relationship in life. It deserves lots of time, and the best of my time.

But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you – Matthew 6:33

Often one of the hardest parts of being a Christian is staying focused, not getting discouraged in your pursuit of Christ. But we’ve got to stay focused…because the best things about the Christian life aren’t available to those who just get by in their spiritual walk…He can only bring deep peace and joy and mission to those who draw close—for reasons we will get to in a moment. In the movie when Sam loses his job and has to sell his bike, we see Sam go back into the old bar, talk to some old friends, and consider turning back. He doesn’t do it…but he is definitely tempted to. We all will be. We all dry up sometimes, sometimes it is are fault, sometimes it is because life hits us hard, etc.

Jesus knew this was the key—and he made sure that he planted a key thought in the minds of his disciples before he died to ensure that they knew it too. They had it easy for 3 years—to interact with Jesus daily, they just had to keep up with Jesus. They practically lived together. And they were full of life—seeing Jesus teach and do miracles every day. But as Jesus approaches the cross, he needs to ensure that they get off autopilot in their walk with God. He’s leaving. And in his wake, he is not only going to leave them alone, he is going to leave them in charge. Thousands of people who will look to the disciples for love and guidance and strength. And in life in general, we will dry up spiritually if we don’t heed his advice too.

Big Idea: A strong relationship with God leads to being on mission with God—God pours love in, and we let it overflow as God breaks our hearts for the needs of this world.

The Gospel of John: Chapter 15
3 Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you. 4 Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. 5 I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.

9 As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. 10 If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. 11 These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full. 12 “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.

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I first heard Tom Nelson a decade ago, when I attended his conference at Liberty University in Lynchburg Virginia. No lie, I was told by one of the campus pastors that I was the world’s biggest fool if I did not attend the conference–it was an extreme statement–but it was worthwhile. The conference definitely reprogrammed me for a godly future relationship with Stacy, who also attended that conference. I am incredibly grateful that I took the time to go.

Still today, I pass the audio from that conference on. It is incredibly helpful to people in every stage of relationships: dating, married, considering divorce, even divorced. I highly recommend the conference to you too. I am grateful that this resource–one of the best I have found, is available to the world for free. Denton Bible has not, and does not sell material to make a profit, from what I have seen. Here’s the link, along with some key notes from the message, The Art of Conflict, from that series.

http://dbcmedia.org/sermons/love-song-a-study-in-the-song-of-solomon/

• Don’t react to your spouse, respond to God.
• Can’t love your spouse? Not as a friend. Not as an outsider. Love them as an enemy.
• What you do in marriage effects EVERYTHING else. Your family, your friendships, your success at work. God sees that your private life affects the public.
• God can’t deal with your spouse if you are trying to punish, manipulate, or insult them. Doing so would add too much legitimacy to your actions—and he is not about tearing down, he is about building up.

There’s a reason why the Bible is printed and reprinted, given away, translated into every language imaginable, and retranslated over and over to increase its clarity. It’s because meeting with God on a personal level is crucial to our spiritual life, and the Bible is the greatest tool available to us for that endeavor.

I have used 365 Day Bibles, Study Bibles, Chronological Bibles, and reading plans from YouVersion in past years. They are all great tools–particularly YouVersion, where I can share key verses and notes with the world via Facebook, Twitter, and https://www.youversion.com/users/patrick_fowler1/notes

When Willow Creek did extensive research on the things that helped people grow in every stage of their spiritual walk, they came back with one single factor that was important in every stage. One “killer app” – reflection on Scripture. If churches could do one thing to help people at all levels of spiritual maturity grow, the choice is clear: inspire, encourage, equip, and hold their people accountable to reflecting on Scripture for God to speak into their lives.

The First Step:

Often times, the first step is often the hardest, and that’s why I leave you with one simple, key step that will get you into your Bible. There’s a devotional that has been faithfully put out for free for many years that is always easy to read, memorable, and drives you to consider Scripture. The Daily Bread. Its available on every major smartphone, every computer, and in print for free by request from www.obd.org

They even have a podcast you can subscribe to, if you prefer to hear it spoken.

I encourage you that if you aren’t doing anything else, begin reading this. You won’t be disappointed.

I have enjoyed interacting with the Daily Bread recently–and I’ve really enjoyed having others read it along with me. What better way to be encouraged than to read the same thoughts with someone else, and they to be able to call, text, or meet them face to face, saying, “Thursday’s thought really challenged me!”

So when you pick up your copy, pick up a few more, and share them!

We give them away every Sunday at www.onechurch.tv