How does a mom of young children — say, three still in diapers — find any time for Bible intake? “Do What You Can” is the answer Don Whitney gives in Simplify Your Spiritual Life: Spiritual Disciplines for the Overwhelmed (pp. 157-158). In this short/excellent chapter, Whitney describes one woman’s example and advice:

She was converted in her late teens. Discipled well from the start, Jean thrived on a spiritual diet strong on disciplines like the reading, studying, and meditating on God’s Word, prayer, fellowship, service, evangelism, worship, silence and solitude, journal-keeping, and Scripture memory. She felt herself making spiritual progress almost daily. All this continued after she married her equally-dedicated husband, Roger.

Then she had three children in diapers. Caring for their most basic needs eliminated almost every moment of the time she used to devote to caring for her soul. Her longings for the things of God reached as high as ever, but her time and energy had new and severe limits.

On at least three occasions I’ve eavesdropped as Jean addressed young moms in similar situations. In effect she’s told them, “At this time in your life, you can’t do what you’re used to doing. You don’t have time for all your heart desires to experience in your spiritual life. Nevertheless, do what you can do, even though it’s precious little. Just don’t deceive yourself by thinking that you can put off a devotional life until you have more time. Because when the years roll around and you finally do have more time, your spiritual habits will be so ingrained that you won’t give more attention to your devotional life at all.”

Then I heard Jean tell her own story. She would keep Bibles open in several rooms–in the kitchen, nursery, bathroom–and look at them when she could. While warming a bottle or changing a diaper, she’d glance over and perhaps read only one verse. But this discipline helped her keep the Word in her heart and the presence of God in her awareness. And as the children’s needs grew less demanding, her disciplines were already in place to receive any additional time she could give them. Even though Jean felt almost spiritually dormant during those years in comparison to her early growth as a Christian, she kept alive the spiritual disciplines through which her soul would blossom in years to come.

Like Jean with three in diapers, you may be in a situation that curtails many of your spiritual activities. You may be looking at many months or even years of such limitations. Do what you can. God does not love us more when we do more, nor less when we do less. He accepts us, not because of what we do for Him, but because of what He’s done for us in Christ.

The Bible says, “He made us accepted in the Beloved [that is, Jesus]” (Ephesians 1:6). And nothing “shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:39). Love God, and within the limitations He has sovereignly placed in your life at this time, do what you can.

Like the above chapter, several of the book’s 90 chapters (two pages each) are available online for free. I’m sure once you read the online chapters, you’ll want to buy the full book to read to rest.

This question came up, directly or indirectly, multiple times in our Clarus conference weekend:

How do we glorify God with our desires in those times when we can’t seem to feel the joyous affection for God and his Word that we should?

A section from Piper’s Desiring God: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist (pp. 85-86 — well-worn pages in my copy of the the book) is one of the first things that comes to my mind in answering this question:

[The preceding comments in this chapter] might give the impression that we cannot come to God in real worship unless we are overflowing with the affections of delight and joy and hope and gratitude and wonder and awe and reverence. I do not believe this is necessarily implied in what I have said.

I see three stages of movement toward the ideal experience of worship. We may experience all three in one hour, and God is pleased with all three — if indeed they are stages on the way to full joy in him. I will mention them in reverse order.

1. There is the final stage in which we feel an unencumbered joy in the manifold perfections of God-the joy of gratitude, wonder, hope, admiration. “My soul is feasted as with marrow and fat and my mouth praises thee with joyful lips” (Psalm 63:5). In this stage we are satisfied with the excellency of God, and we overflow with the joy of his fellowship. This is the feast of Christian Hedonism.

2. In a prior stage that we often taste, we do not feel fullness, but rather longing and desire. Having tasted the feast before, we recall the goodness of the Lord-but it seems far off. We preach to our souls not to be downcast, because we are sure we shall again praise the Lord (Psalm 42:5). Yet for now our hearts are not very fervent.

Even though this falls short of the ideal of vigorous, heartfelt adoration and hope, yet it is a great honor to God. We honor the water from a mountain spring not only by the satisfied “ahhh” after drinking our fill, but also by the unquenched longing to be satisfied while still climbing to it.

3. The lowest stage of worship-where all genuine worship starts, and where it often returns for a dark season-is the barrenness of soul that scarcely feels any longing, and yet is still granted the grace of repentant sorrow for having so little love. “When my soul was embittered, when I was pricked in heart, I was stupid and ignorant, I was like a beast toward thee” (Psalm 73 :22).

Worship is a way of gladly reflecting back to God the radiance of his worth. This is the ideal. For God surely is more glorified when we delight in his magnificence than when we are so unmoved by it we scarcely feel anything, and only wish we could. Yet he is also glorified by the spark of anticipated gladness that gives rise to the sorrow we feel when our hearts are lukewarm. Even in the miserable guilt we feel over our beast-like insensitivity, the glory of God shines. If God were not gloriously desirable, why would we feel sorrowful for not feasting fully on his beauty?

The book is available online for free. So, no excuses — if you’ve never read Desiring God immediately stop what you’re doing and read it. Give up all recreation, food, sleep, even hygiene, until you’re done.

We have just finished our annual Clarus conference weekend, and as a staff are both catching our breath for a few days as well as assessing the conference. So many people both said and wrote encouraging words. As an example of one comment card, “Thanks for another great conference. I like the format and appreciate the speakers and music ministry emphasis. The teaching/preaching is very challenging.”

This year’s topic was “The Convergence of Doctrine and Delight.” The various talks addressed the relation between truth and passion. As an example, Dr. Ray Ortlund spoke on the topic of “True Spirituality: Delighting in Truth,” looking at the convergence of truth and delight in Psalm 1. He encouraged us, as does the Psalm, to meditate on God’s truth, and not just do a quick read for information.

And as another example, Dr. Sam Storms spoke on, “Delighting Ourselves in the Lord: Why Joy in God Matters,” from Psalm 37:4. Dr. Storms noted four ways that we can delight ourselves in God. One is through intellectual fascination and another is through aesthetic adoration.

We will soon have all the talks up on the website for listening or downloading, so if you missed any, please check the website in a week. Also, as Pastor Ryan mentioned at the conference, our staff is always glad to answer any questions that came up during the conference, or later, as you listen to the talks or read through any of our speakers’ books.

I hope you’re planning on being with us tonight and tomorrow for some great singing, fellowship, and teaching/preaching in our Clarus weekend.

A few things to say before we begin tonight:

1. If you haven’t yet bought a ticket (or tickets), you can do so online here or in the church office, or you can buy them at the door when you come.

2. Please do come early. Doors will open at 5:45 PM. The singing begins at 6:15 PM (great songs, full band!). The first session with Dr. Ortlund begins at 6:30 PM.

3. I’m especially excited about the topics/titles for tonight’s two plenary sessions. They seem like such a fitting way to begin our weekend of exploring “The Convergence of Doctrine and Delight.”

• First, Dr. Ortlund will give an exposition of Psalm 1 – “True Spirituality: Delighting in Truth”
• Then, Dr. Storms will give us some insight into the historical example of “Jonathan Edwards and the Religious Affections: The Soul Set on Fire for God.”

What is meditation, according to the Bible (Psa. 119:15, 27, 48, 78, 148)? Sam Storms, one of the speakers at this weekend’s Clarus conference, answers the question like this:

Meditation begins, but by no means ends, with thinking on Scripture. To meditate properly our souls must reflect upon what our minds have ingested and our hearts must rejoice in what our souls have grasped. We have truly meditated when we slowly read, prayerfully imbibe, and humbly rely upon what God has revealed to us in His Word‚ all of this, of course, in conscious dependence on the internal, energizing work of the Spirit.

Later, Dr. Storms distinguishes Christian meditation from New Age or Eastern meditation:

1. Unlike Eastern meditation, which advocates emptying the mind, Christian meditation call for is to fill our mind with God and His truth.
2. Unlike Eastern meditation, which advocates mental passivity, Christian meditation call on us to actively exert our mental energy.
3. Unlike Eastern meditation, which advocates detachment from the world, Christian meditation call for attachment to God.
4. Unlike Eastern meditation, which advocates visualization in order to create one’s own reality, Christian meditation call for visualization of the reality already created by God.
5. Unlike Eastern meditation, which advocates metaphysical union with god, Christian meditation calls for spiritual communion with God.
6. Unlike Eastern meditation, which advocates mystical transport as the goal of one’s efforts, Christian meditation calls for moral transformation as the goal of one’s efforts.
7. Unlike Eastern meditation, which advocates an inner journey to find the center of one’s being, Christian meditation calls for an outward focus on the objective revelation of God in Scripture and creation.