Making Time for God During Our Busy Schedules

By Aidyn Little

“But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.”—Matthew 6:33 

Life is busy. With all the time spent in school, with our friends and family, and participating in extracurricular activities, we barely have any time left in the day for anything else. The question is, are you making time for your relationship with the Lord? 

What you spend your time on reflects your priorities. We spend so much time doing things that only take from us . . . they take our energy, our attention, our thoughts, and our time, leaving us drained. Instead, we need to be spending time doing the one thing that can FILL us—spending time with the Lord. 

In Matthew 6:33, Jesus tells us, “Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness.” Why? Because He is the One who is supremely valuable and worthy of our affection and devotion, the One in whom we find our identity, belonging, and purpose, the One who fills and satisfies our souls, and the One who makes our joy complete. 

We need rest, but we cannot find permanent rest in anything of this world; we can only find it in Him. In Matthew, God promises us a constant rest, but first He says, “Come to Me.” He is asking us to surrender and to abide. What does that word mean? Basically, it means to sit in, to make your home, to move in, to put down roots. It’s making something into your home. Have you ever moved? When you move, you have to unload all your stuff and bring it inside the new house. But your stuff doesn’t stay in boxes. You unpack everything, you settle in, paint, hang up TVs and pictures. 

Abiding in Christ means making building and rooting your life around your relationship with Him. It’s a choice—a daily choice—that we need to make. The beauty of abiding in and having a relationship with the Lord is how readily available He is to us. We can turn to Him through prayer or His Word all hours of the day. He is available, but He is waiting for us to go to Him. Once we fully seek Him, that is when we will find true joy and rest, that’s when, as Jesus says, “...all other things will be added to you.”

So, how do we do this? In watching Jesus’ life, I think one of the greatest things we can learn from Him is how He always made time to spend with His Father. He knew the importance of time with the Lord, especially through prayer. In Mark it says, “Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off into a solitary place, where he prayed.” He got up early just to be alone with the Lord. Now, this is after He had spent time being tempted by the enemy in the wilderness, just started His ministry in Galilee, and performed miracles of healing the sick and casting out demons. He was EXHAUSTED, yet He still found time for the Lord because He knew what His priorities were. We should follow Jesus’ example here and prioritize our relationship with the Lord. 

Whether it means waking up a few minutes earlier, going to bed a few minutes later, replacing 30 minutes of scrolling through social media with 30 minutes of studying the Bible, or 20 minutes of Netflix in order to go on a walk and pray—whatever that looks like for you . . . make it happen! By making it a priority to spend time with Him, to grow in your relationship with Him through prayer and Bible study, I promise it will change your life in ways you never thought possible!