My fifteen-minute Bible study routine and time with God during college

I don’t have a lot of time during the semester. Even with only taking Friday and Saturday nights off for fun/sanity purposes and not doing much besides schoolwork and extracurriculars during the week, I still only get between five and seven hours of sleep a night.  But, there’s no WAY I’m going to neglect reading the Bible on a regular basis. So I need a quick and simple way to get a good healthy dose of Bible every day.

Here’s how I do it. It can be summarized with this sentence. Pick a chapter, read it, pray. That’s it. I’m not a very fussy person, and I know that any quality time that I spend with God and the Bible is going to be fine, so I don’t mess with complicated reading plans and regimens. I’ve tried, and I’ve found that as soon as I get a day or two behind, I start feeling this enormous sense of guilt and not only stop following the plan, but stop reading the Bible entirely. Some Bible reading is better than none, so this is the plan I roll with. These fifteen minutes shouldn’t really be the only form of Bible study that you do, because it doesn’t go very deep into the word, but this particular plan serves a very good purpose for me, in that it keeps God on my mind every single day.

Here are some more specifics on what I do for this fifteen-minute daily Bible study:

• Time: I’m an early morning person, so I do my Bible reading at breakfast. I find that it’s better to do Bible reading while I’m still fresh, as opposed to when I’m half-asleep at midnight. Also, if I have a set time every day of the week, it helps keep me on track. (You may not be able to do the same time every day of week because college schedules vary so much, but if every Monday you read at 10am, that will give you some sort of schedule to work from.) And, of course, if you have longer than fifteen minutes (I normally take a twenty-minute breakfast for this, but I’ve done it in fifteen) then by all means, be flexible with the time.
• Setting:  Whatever works for you. I’m fine doing it in the cafeteria, you may prefer a quieter spot. This depends a lot on whether or not you pray out loud or silently.
• Passage: Depends on the time of the semester. I’ll often start the semester reading straight through a longer book (I’ve done Exodus and Acts that way, among others). After that, I’ll switch to a shorter book because I’ll start to get busier and my mind honestly won’t be as focused. But I don’t stick to this “through a book” method. If there was a passage that came to mind the day before and I wanted to read that, or if I feel like what I’m going to face in the coming day requires a specific passage, I’ll read that. I’m pretty flexible.
• Reading: I don’t do any deep reading in these fifteen-minute sessions. Once through is enough for me. I want to get the general overview of the passage, and I pay close attention to verses that stick out to me as I’m reading as focus for my prayers.
• Prayer: Everyone prays differently of course, so this is totally up to you. I tend to just sit quietly for a few minutes and see what God brings to my mind. If there’s something specific on my mind that’s getting in the way of listening to what God is saying, I’ll pray about that to get it off my chest first.
• Miss a day?: This is the most important one, and the one I get myself caught on so many times. If you miss a day, don’t stress out about it. Really. It’s not a big deal. God understands that things come up. If you miss one day, don’t feel like you have to read for twice as long the next day or anything. Let it go and move on with your reading.

If you have specific ways that you fit Bible study into your busy college schedule,  if you have used something similar to this method in the past, if you have tried this since reading this and it has or has not worked for you in the past, or if you have any other thoughts, post them in the comments!