Summary: From the time we wake up to the time we go to bed, we spend a lot of time thinking about a wide variety of things, but the question is, how much of our time do we spend focusing our thoughts on the things of God? The problem most people have is feeling that their life is already so busy they don’t have any extra time to squeeze in doing one more thing to their already overcrowded schedule. However, this is looking at the problem from the wrong perspective. This article examines how we can give God more of our time.

The scriptures tell us to “Come unto Christ and be perfected in him” (Moroni 10:32), but how do we do that?

When we get up in the morning, we think about getting ourselves ready for work, which includes showering, deciding what clothes to wear, and what to have for breakfast. As we’re driving to work, we might be thinking about the music or news we’re listening to on the radio or concentrating on the traffic. At work we think about fulfilling our duties and the decisions we need to make. At home, we think about fixing dinner, taking our children to their activities, doing yard work, the laundry, and other chores around the house. Later in the evening we think about the television shows we’re watching and by bedtime we’re thinking about getting ready to sleep.

As we go about living our lives, no one spends 100% of their time thinking about just one thing. Instead, we focus our thoughts on a lot of different things at different times of the day, and we spend different amounts of time thinking about each one. For example, we don’t spend nearly as much time thinking about what we want to wear as we do thinking about our job. And even at work, most people will spend some time thinking about things that are unrelated to their employment.

In the 2021 October General Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saint, President Russell M. Nelson said, “My brothers and sisters, I plead with you to make time for the Lord!” The question is, how much of our time should we make for the Lord?

At the end of each day, some people have not spent any time thinking about Jesus Christ or his gospel. Some will have spent a couple of minutes saying their prayers, while others might have spent 30 minutes reading the scriptures.

In the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, most members have a calling that requires them to spend time serving in the church and the most common calling is that of a teacher. Some people will wait until late Saturday night to begin preparing for their Sunday lesson and perhaps they will sit in a sacrament meeting and while people are speaking at the pulpit.they will still be preparing for what they’re shortly going to teach in class

There are some who will spend a little more time on Saturday night preparing their lesson for the next day while others will start a few days earlier, and others will spend all week preparing. What we see is that different people will spend different amounts of time thinking about their calling, according to how important their calling is to them.

But the question is, how much of our time should we spend with the Lord? At a BYU devotional in May 2022, Sister, Neill F. Marriott asked the question , “What is the ratio of time we spend between making time for the Lord and making time for the world?” Is five minutes a day enough, or is thirty minutes enough, or should we be spending more time, and if so, how much more time?

The concept of eternal progression is that we are continually improving, and we do that in incremental steps. We start where we are and keep improving a little at a time. We do this when dieting or trying to become a better athlete, or a better cook, husband, wife, father, or mother, and this same principle applies to how much time we spend thinking about and focusing our thoughts on the Lord.

If we’re not spending any time doing that, then spending five minutes a day is an improvement. If we’re spending ten minutes a day reading the scriptures, then increasing our time by another five or ten minutes is an improvement. If we’re spending thirty minutes a day thinking about Jesus, then increasing the time to forty or forty-five minutes is an improvement.

However, increasing our time focusing on spiritual matters isn’t a one-time effort. In other words, the person who hasn’t been spending any time during the day thinking about the gospel, when they decide to spend five minutes a day doing that, they shouldn’t be content to stay at that level for very long. The key to success is to keep improving.

The problem most people have is feeling that their life is already so busy they don’t have any extra time to squeeze in doing one more thing to their already overcrowded schedule. However, this is looking at the problem from the wrong perspective.

To increase the amount of time we spend thinking about spiritual things doesn’t necessarily mean spending more time reading the scriptures or saying longer prayers. There are other things we can do than can help increase our spirituality and our focus on God. For example, throughout the day we can consciously look for opportunities to share the gospel with others or be more attentive to opportunities to be of help to others.

If we want to add an extra ten minutes thinking about the things of God, there are a myriad of ways we can do that, and it doesn’t have to be done all at one time. We can make our morning prayers a little more sincere and perhaps a few minutes longer, and then in the evening, when things are a little quieter, we can spend some time reading the scriptures. The cumulative effect of doing this is that we’ve spent ten more minutes thinking about God than we normally would have.

But we don’t have to set aside a specific time that is exclusively dedicated to focusing on God. We can think about spiritual things as we’re doing other things. For example, as we’re working around the house, ro driving in our car, we can listen to spiritually edifying music or listen to conference talks. As we’re doing mundane tasks that don’t take much concentration, we can ponder on the scriptures we read earlier in the day, or some aspect of the gospel we want to understand better.

As we go throughout the day, we can take time to be attentive to how the Lord is blessing us in little things, such as keeping us safe when we almost had an accident, or the things that went right in our life, or how things turned out for our good. In other words, we can take time to look for God’s hand in our life. This helps us to be more aware of how God is assisting us throughout the day, rather than taking his many blessings for granted.

Something else we can do is to take time throughout our day to talk with the Lord. We don’t need to get on our knees, fold our arms, and say a formal prayer. Wherever we are, we can silently thank God every time we notice one of his blessings in our life. We can ask him for help in making a decision or in performing a task. We can ask for his help when we find ourselves becoming overwhelmed, impatient, frustrated, or are experiencing any kind of a problem.

Because of their great love for us, our Father in heaven, and Jesus Christ desperately would like to have a personal relationship with us, but for there to be a relationship between two people, both parties have to want it. If we want to be a friend with someone but they don’t want to be friends to us, there can be no relationship between the two of us

In the same way, we have to want to have a personal relationship with God because if we don’t then such a relationship can’t exist. And the way we have a relationship with anyone is by being friends with them. If we want God to be in our life, then we have to be in his life, and one of the things friends do is talk with one another. Like all fathers, God is pleased when his children talk with him, and one of the ways we can focus our thinking more on Christ is by informally talking with him throughout the day.

In addition to this, there are other ways to find more time to focus on God. We all have the same twenty-four hours each day and the difference between someone who is a financially successful businessman and the person who is struggling to pay their bills is what they choose to do with those twenty-four hours.

There are many things in life we have to do to survive but there are many other things we do that are not nearly as necessary. The scriptures tell us to “lay aside every weight and the sins which doth so easily beset us and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith” (Hebrews 12:1,2).

There are things we do that can easily be set aside to make room for other things that help us focus on Jesus as the author and finisher of our faith. Watching television for three to four hours each night might be enjoyable and can be a stress reliever from the pressures of the day, but there are more productive things we could do with that time. If we missed watching just one show, we could use that time for better scripture study, or preparing for our Sunday lesson, or doing family history work, or anything else that would increase the amount of time we spend focusing on the Lord.

We choose what we want to spend our time doing, and it’s a known fact that people spend their time doing those things that are important to them while deliberately choosing to put off doing things they are less interested in. When people complain they don’t have any extra time to spend on improving their spirituality, what they are saying is that the things of the world are more important to them than their relationship with God.

On the other hand, as we make the effort to increase our time with the lord, even if it’s a little, our priorities slowly begin to change because our hearts are changing, and when that happens, we gradually but surely find ourselves wanting to spend more time thinking about the things of God.

However, having said that, it is so easy to get caught up in the everyday affairs of life that we can lose our focus on what’s most important. It’s easy to become distracted as the cares of the world press down on us, and before we know it, the day has ended, and we’ve not only forgotten to take time for the Lord but feel as though we didn’t get done all the other important worldly things that still need to be accomplished.

It’s during times like this when we lose sight of the real purpose of life, and we focus so much on the here and now that we forget to think about the hereafter. Our mind can become so preoccupied thinking about our immediate circumstances that we lose our eternal perspective.

The only cure for this kind condition is to become determined that, no matter what, we’re going to put God first in our life. Admittedly, that takes effort on our part, but if we are casual about building a relationship with God, then it won’t take much for other things to take precedence over him.

However, the quantity of time we spend focusing on Jesus is not nearly as important as the quality of our time . For example, we’ve been counseled to read the scriptures daily and to pray daily, and although doing that is better than not doing those things, if we are not properly studying the scriptures, or are merely going through the motions of praying, it will have a limited effect upon our spirituality. Even spending time in the temple can have a minimal effect on us if we are not going there for the right reason.

Whenever God gives us a commandment, it’s not because he wants to give us something to keep us busy. There’s a reason for everything he does, and when we keep the commandments of God for the wrong reason we’re not going to get the results we should.

Then what is the right reason for spending time focusing on the Lord? There are three things we’re hoping to accomplish. The first is to learn more about God, who he is, what is important to him, what he likes and what he doesn’t like. But to do that, requires us to learn about his character, attributes, and attitude.

Jesus said that “this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent” (John 17:3). If we want to live with a holy God then we must learn how to be holy as he is (1 Peter 1:15), and one of the reasons we focus our thought on Jesus, his gospel, and his atonement, is to learn how to we can become prepared and worthy to live with him in the celestial kingdom.

Therefore, one of the major reasons why we focus our thoughts on God, the eternal Father, and his Son Jesus Christ, is to learn more about them, because we can’t become worthy of inheriting all that the Father has until we’ve become like him, and we can’t emulate someone we know nothing about.

However, for too many people, reading the scriptures, saying our prayers, going to the temple, serving in the church, doing family history, or engaging in any other spiritual activity is often viewed as things we need to do in order to please God.

But keeping the commandments is merely a means to achieve the end result God wants to see in us. They are the tools God gives us that helps us become more like him. When we lose sight of that, then keeping the commandments does us little good. When Jesus was asked which commandment was the greatest of all, he answered that we should love God and love our neighbor, and then he added, “On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets” (Matthew 22:40).

What this means is that all the commandments God gives us can be distilled into doing just these two things, therefore, rather than mechanically focusing on keeping each specific commandment, the better way is to understand the principles behind the commandments.

Our circumstances can change but the principles of the gospel remain the same. When we come to understand the principles of godliness which are contained in the gospel of Jesus Christ, we can then adapt them to whatever situation we find ourselves in. But the way we come to understand those principles is by coming to know God better. Therefore, one reason for focusing our thoughts on Jesus Christ is to learn more about him so we can learn how to become like him.

The second reason for focusing our thoughts on God is to draw closer to him and develop a more personal and intimate relationship with him. Abraham was known as “the friend of God” (James 2:23) and if we want to enjoy the blessings Abraham received, then we too must be a friend to God.

To truly take upon us the name of Christ requires becoming his friend, and friends enjoy being with one another, talking with one another, and helping each other. As believers in Christ, we call on him for favors through the use of prayer, and he has promised to hear our prayers and answer them. But he asks favors of us as well, and what he asks us to do is to keep his commandments and help him save God’s children.

The scriptures tell us “and hereby we do know that we know him, if we keep his commandments” (1 John 2:3). At the time of our baptism, we promised we would strive to do that, and each week when we partake of the sacrament, we renew that promise. Thus, those who are true friends of Jesus are willing to obey his words and serve him.

Jesus taught “And he that will hear my voice shall be my sheep. For behold, in my name are they called; and if they know me they shall come forth, and shall have a place eternally at my right hand. And it shall come to pass that when the second trump shall sound then shall they that never knew me come forth and shall stand before me… And then I will confess unto them that I never knew them; and they shall depart into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels” (Mosiah 26:21,24,25,27).

If we don’t want to spend much time trying to develop a close personal relationship with Jesus Christ because we’re more interested in thinking about the things of this world, then we won’t respond when he calls us to come join him in heaven. But even if we do respond, there is no reason to believe we will want to spend eternity being with Christ in heaven when we didn’t want to spend much time with him here on earth.

And the third reason why we should focus more of our thoughts on Jesus is because when we draw closer to him, we increase our ability to draw upon his strength, power, and inspiration. The scriptures invite us to “Come unto Christ and be perfected in him,” and the reason why we have to do that is because we can’t perfect ourselves. It is only through Christ’s atoning sacrifice that allows him to help make us perfect, but if choose to spend most of our time with the world, than spending our time coming unto him, then we are turning our back on his help.

The covenants we make with Jesus binds or yokes us to him and when that happens, we find ourselves working in tandem with him. Instead of us making the journey back to our celestial home alone, Christ travels with us, helping us all along the way as we carry the heavy burden we are called upon to bear. Life is meant to be hard because it’s in the struggle that we grow stronger, but at times we can feel overburdened and even stumble and fall. The more we focus our thoughts on Christ, the more aware we become of his power to help lift us and give us the strength and courage to keep going.

Therefore, as we go throughout our day, we should take time to focus on and remember the covenants we’ve made with God, because in doing so, it helps us remember that we have access to his power. But the more we allow our thoughts to focus on the things of the world, the less we think about our covenants and the blessings that are associated with them.

Worse yet, the less we focus on our covenants, the easier it becomes to violate them, often without even realizing it. And when that happens, it’s as though we have uncoupled ourselves from God and are operating alone according to our own wisdom and strength.

God has given us the freedom to choose whether we want to spend our time thinking about preparing ourselves for what comes after this life, or we are free to spend our time focusing on the temporary and fleeting things of this world, but what we choose to spend most of our time doing is an indication of what’s most important to us.

However, we don’t have to choose between doing only one or the other. In fact, we are required to improve ourselves both temporally and spiritually, but what will make all the difference in eternity is how wisely we choose to use our time.

 

Related article can be found at The Nature of Spiritual Growth