September 19 Daily Devotional

You have all the time there is!

We desire to read the Bible, we want to study it, we want to read a commentary; but we do not feel like it at the moment, we think it is a bad thing to try to do these things when we do not feel at our best, and we had better put it off until we feel better, there will be a more appropriate opportunity later on. Or we have not the time, or we lack the opportunity.... It is beyond dispute that most of us are living lives which are seriously lacking in discipline and in order and in arrangement.... There are so many things that distract us. You start with your morning newspaper ... and then in a few hours comes your evening paper ... I need not waste time in detailing all those things, the wireless, the television and the things we have to do, meetings to attend, incidents here and there.... The fact is that every one of us is fighting for his life at the present time, fighting to possess and master and live our own life....

Now the simple answer to that is, that it is sheer lack of discipline, it is a sheer failure to order our life. It is no use complaining about circumstances.... we all have time! If we have time to do these other things, we do have the time, and the whole secret of success ... is to take that time and insist that it is given to this matter of the soul instead of to these other things....

What is the treatment prescribed by the apostle for this condition? ... First and foremost he emphasizes ‘all diligence’. [2 Peter 1:5.] ‘Make every effort’—according to another translation. That is it—’make every effort’... give all diligence, or as it is translated in the tenth verse, be more zealous than ever before to do these things. Here is the treatment then, the exercise of discipline and of diligence.

Spiritual Depression, pp. 209–10