By the amazing grace of God, I've been set free, and
... if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. (John 8:36)
Therefore, I should:
live as people who are free... (1 Peter 2:16)
The first time I do something that I know pleases God, I feel alive, like I'm doing the very thing I was made to do: when I sit down in the study and open my Bible in the evening, not because I know I should, but because I want to; when I talk to God on my walk to the station in the morning; when I spend time talking to someone about following Jesus.
Then I decide to make a habit of it. The second time I feel alive, but a little less so. Gradually, the habit sucks out the life from the thing I was doing, until it becomes a duty; a habit.
This journal is an obvious example - I started off writing pretty regularly, but gradually I've left it, and it's been unwritten for a month or two. When I first started writing these entries on my train journeys to and from work it was something I really looked forward to. Partly it was that I was spending time with God at the time, and I had things I wanted to write about, to help me process them; but partly it was because it was new and therefore exciting to me.
Bible study has, at various times over the last 5 years gone through a similar cycle. I get back in the habit of reading the Bible, and for a time it is the most exciting thing in the world. I learn from what I'm reading, and I grow in my walk with God. Then comes the second day/week/month, and gradually it gets stale, and my eyes gloss over the passage when I sit down to read. The passage finishes, and I close my Bible and get on with my day. Gradually, the habit dies, and I stop reading my Bible. A little time passes (generally around a month or two), I pick it up again and the cycle restarts.
Right now, I'm about half-way through the cycle - I'm reading my Bible, but it's a real struggle to take things in, and to hear what God has to say to me through it.
So this is my question - how do you remain free? How do you spend time with God each day without it becoming a ritual? How can I be in my Bible each day without getting bored?
I know that God set me free from the law (Romans 6:14; Galatians 5:1; 18), but I still know I should be spending regular time with God. How does that work?
If this is something you find hard, I'd value hearing that too!
N.B. Comments welcome via Facebook, or drop me an e-mail (try putting dominic@ before the domain name you're looking at).