5 More Minutes

I’ve noticed a certain distractibility creeping into my devotional life and I don’t like it. My brain pings all over the place and it’s as if there is a superstrong magnet in the other room pulling me to end and GET BUSY with all the tasks of my day. It’s frustrating because at other points in my day, I regularly have these fits of longing for time with God…or I’ll have a reaction to something and think, “I really want to talk to Jesus about this and figure out the deeper layers”. Then, the next morning when I have my prayer time, it’s almost as if I cannot hang on to the thing I wanted to take to a deeper level…it flits the moment I bring it to Jesus. What is going on with me???

A old friend who is also a therapist was talking with me about what he sees in his practice as a “Crisis of Interiority”. He describes the difficulty that his clients have with going deep within themselves to discover longings, make difficult decisions, or connect with God. As we described more of the ways we see our clients losing the art of depth and solitude, I felt a dreaded identification with this concept…

Maybe I’m having my own crisis of interiority!

I’ve implemented a new tool that is helping me..

My new rule for myself is this:

5 MINUTES MORE

By this I mean that when I feel that pull to be done, to get busy, to close my journal, I insist with myself that I remain for just 5 minutes more.

During the 5 minutes,

• I get quiet and listen for the Holy Spirit’s voice or nudge for a way to go a little deeper,
• I ask myself one more question that presses me further,
• I contemplate further something I’ve read or reflected on during my prayer time,
• Or I listen to worship music that might help me out of my brain and into my emotional self to connect differently.

It’s helping me! It isn’t too intimidating to tack on just 5 more minutes and it’s stretching important muscles that I hate to say, atrophy all too easily!

We are all in danger of losing the art of being deeper in this day and age of instant access to work, news, and media! Try “5 Minutes More” and tackle your crisis of interiority too!