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!

Be prepared in season and out of season

Am I the only one who, since going off to college, feels like they don’t get into the Christmas spirit until days before Christmas, if at all? I’m just now starting to get into Christmas this year, and honestly, that’s only because my family is Eastern European, so we celebrate Christmas Eve more than Christmas – which means we open presents on Christmas Eve. O.o

Yes, we know it’s Advent, and hear about peace and joy and hope and Christ at church, and those are some of my favorite times from this past month. I really got a chance to just be with Christ outside of my stress and schoolwork and just be with God and fellow believers. But normally, day to day, there just isn’t a group of college Christians who sits around the dinner table and lights an Advent wreath and does devotionals. Even when such an activity exists, it’s almost impossible to fit into our schedules. I know I didn’t attend a single Advent devotional this year because it was held at a time that I was always studying.

So what does God have to say about preparing ourselves for Advent and making time for him? I looked up “prepare” in the concordence of my NIV Study Bible, and I discovered these words from 2 Timothy 4:1-2, “In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead, and in view of his appearing and his kingdom, I give you this charge: Preach the Word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke, and encourage – with great patience and careful instruction.”

The phrase that struck me from this verse was, “be prepared in season and out of season.” Would God like us to give him as much time as we can give him in the season of expectation before Christ’s birth? Yes – that much is a given as it’s a constant theme throughout the Scriptures. But I believe that God puts our other activities, the ones that aren’t related to God in a direct way, in our lives because those also lead us in our personal mission here on Earth. More importantly, I believe that God wants us to be prepared year-round, always thinking of him day in and day out and crafting the moments of our weeks to more closely fit his ways. Yes, the Advent season is one of the more showy times in the Christian church, but that does not mean anything unless Christ is also integrated into our daily lives.

Dear God, thank you for this day, the Eve of your Son’s birth. Help us to remember the importance of his birth in our daily actions, and help us to always be prepared to do your will, no matter what the season. Amen.