4 Devotional Ideas to Connect to God Daily
I am going to be doing a series on connection over the next few Tamara’s Takeaway episodes, and we are first going to talk about how we can connect to God through a daily devotional.
Episode Discussion Points
It is important to connect to God because the closer we feel to Him, the stronger and more courageous we feel.
Religious leader Jeffrey Holland said about our connection with God that it is the “most important connection of all.” He continued, “As you forge a bond your Father in Heaven, He will forge a bond with you.” (Deseret News, March 6, 2021 page 24.)
James 4:8, “Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you.”
John 15:5, “I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing.”
4 Daily Devotion Ideas
There are 7 categories I am going to be talking about over the next few weeks, but we will only discuss 1 today: Connecting to God through daily devotionals and what that can look like.
Prayer
Kneeling (formal) or informal—mid-day, while driving, conversations, pleas for help, evening prayer, in moments of crisis, help to know how to handle a situation, to deal with strong emotions, etc.
Colossians 4:2, “Continue in prayer, and watch in the same with Thanksgiving.”
Examples of Jesus praying through the Lord’s prayer
Scripture Study
Reading the word of God chapter by chapter
Following a daily devotion prepared by someone else coupled with quotes/insights
Memorizing Bible Verses
Posting Bible verses around home, car, on phone
Listening to scripture
Open to a random verse/chapter and read
Meditation
Meditation can be prayer
It can be repeating a word over and over like peace, heaven, God, connect, hope, love etc.
If you lose focus, just come back and keep going (everyone tends to get distracted while meditating—especially when they are first starting).
Meditation can also be saying Bible phrases while breathing deeply like, “Be still and know that I am God,” or “Peace be still.”
Story of Elijah and how after all the distractions he found connection with God through the “still, small voice.” (1 Kings 19:12)
Gospel Talks/Speeches
I love either reading or listening to people talk about the gospel
This often helps bring be closer to God.
Call to Action
Incorporate a daily devotional in your life starting today! If you already do one, did God inspire to to add something or tweak your routine a little bit. Listen to and follow those promptings.
Download the 7 Ways to Connect with God infographic below.
#tamarakanderson #storiesofhopeinhardtimes #podcast #hope #God #hardtimes #dailydevotional #devotional #prayer #scripturestudy #Inspirationalspeeches #meditation
Transcription
You can find the transcription of today's episode here:
Tamara Anderson 0:00
Can you only connect to God through prayer? That is a good question. And I'm going to discuss the answer with you today. And for the next couple of Tamara's takeaways because there are actually many ways you can connect to God and prayer is not the only one. So stay tuned.
Tamara Anderson 0:27
Welcome to Stories of Hope in Hard Times, the show that explores how people endure and even thrive in difficult times, all with God's help. I'm your host Tamara K Anderson, join me on a journey to find inspiring stories of hope and wisdom learned in life's hardest moments.
Tamara Anderson 0:52
Hello, and welcome to another episode of Tamara's Takeaways on the Stories of Hope in Hard Times podcast. And one of the things that I have been really thinking about and considering in the last few months is the power of connection, connection to God, connection to our neighbors. And so I'm going to do a little series over the next several Tamara's takeaways where I'm going to talk about connection with God, and connection with others and why those are important and how it benefits us.
Tamara Anderson 1:28
The first series that I'm going to do over the next couple of weeks is I have an infographic here that you can go and download off my website, stories of hope podcast.com or Tamara K anderson.com. And if you look up today's podcast, you will find this seven ways to increase connection with God. And I'm going to be diving into each of these seven ways over the next couple of weeks.
Tamara Anderson 1:54
And so, first of all, let's talk about connection with God. Because that's pretty important. And I think that the stronger our connection with God is that the stronger we feel inside, the more capable, courageous, we feel inside. Teligious leader Jeffrey Holland said this about our connection with God, he said, It is the "most important connection of all." And I love that he also said, "As you forge a bond with your Father in Heaven, He will forge a bond with you."
Tamara Anderson 2:35
And I love that it kind of makes me think of that scripture in the New Testament, where he says in James chapter four, verse 8, "Drawn nigh to God and He will draw nigh unto you." And I love that as we choose to draw closer to Him and make that connection with Him a top priority that He is drawing near to us. And He can strengthen us and enable us to pass through whatever we're going through God strong. And don't we all need a little bit of God's strength in our life today? I know I do.
Tamara Anderson 3:11
So today I'm going to talk about a main categories that we can connect with God and with several examples under each. The first category is our daily devotional. And for each of us that is going to look completely different. And it's looked different for me at different times in my life.
Tamara Anderson 3:32
There's been times when I've had 30 minutes to pray. And there's been times when I've literally had 10 seconds to pray before my feet hit the ground in the morning. And so a daily devotional is going to look different for each of us, depending upon our life circumstances. But it's important that we have one. And so let me give you some examples of what a daily devotional can look like.
Tamara Anderson 3:59
First of all, prayer, prayer is a key component. And it is one way that we can connect with God. It is not the only way we can connect with God. But I'm going to start off there. Prayer is such a powerful instrument for each of us to use. I love the verse and Colossians chapter four verse two where God invites us "Continue in prayer and watch in the same with thanksgiving." Because I think right there we have two key components of prayer. Of course Jesus Christ was the ultimate example of connecting with his Father through prayer and taught us beautifully through the Lord's Prayer, how to do that, to thank him for our daily bread and ask for forgiveness, and to be thankful and to him.
Tamara Anderson 4:47
And so as we pray, we can follow that same pattern to give gratitude to God to ask him for what we need to talk to him about what we're worried out, and, and really give our hearts to God that day. Pray for his help pray for his protection for you, for those who love. And God is good to answer those prayers, sometimes not in the way we think. But he will always bless us with strength as we ask for it. Sometimes he only gives us strength one minute at a time to get through whatever circumstance we're dealing with. But prayer is powerful.
Tamara Anderson 5:30
Now, there are different types of prayer. Sometimes we may do kneeling prayer, sometimes, like me, you may be driving in the car and be praying at the same time. Sometimes you may be in a moment of crisis and just say a prayer to God right there in the moment of your crisis. "Dear God, I don't know how to get through this, please help me." Or sometimes my kids will come to me with a situation in their lives. And I'm not sure what to say. And sometimes my prayers are immediate, saying "Heavenly Father, please help me to know how to handle this. Or to know what to say."
Tamara Anderson 6:01
Sometimes, I pray for help with the emotions that I'm dealing with. I'm feeling angry right now. But I don't want to feel this, I'm going to give it to you and pray for help, that I can feel peace again.
Tamara Anderson 6:15
And so prayer is powerful, because we can take any and all of our emotions, highs and lows, kind of in between our struggles, or worries or concerns. We can take those all to God through prayer. And it doesn't have to be a formal kneeling prayer. They can be prayers throughout the day. In fact, God invites us to pray continually, right? So remember, you can pray anytime, anywhere you can carry on that conversation with God. And I think that the older I get, the more that tends to happen, that I tend to just start up a conversation with them in the middle of the day, as I'm cooking, or as I'm doing laundry, or whatever. So know that you can connect with God through prayer. Formally, informally, wherever you are.
Tamara Anderson 7:04
We're going to take a quick break. But when we get back, I'm going to talk you through the second big way that we can connect with God. So stay tuned.
Tamara Anderson 7:13
Hey, friends, I need your help. After podcasting, my Stories of Hope in Hard Times podcast for three and a half years and over 150 episodes all by myself, I've decided that with the growth and everything I'm doing, I can't do it by myself anymore. And so I am looking for three brave individuals to join me in my labor of love, and helping spread God's light to the world that people can get through hard times with his help. So if you resonate with that message and would love to help me spread my message of hope to the world, I'm looking for three key people. And they are first a producer to help me produce the podcast, get things scheduled and stuff like that. Second, a writer to help me make things look all pretty in the writing part of it. Third, a social media person who can help me make social media things look awesome and pretty. And you don't have to have any podcasting experience to help me with these things. Just a love of God and trying to help your fellow man. So if you're interested in helping me out, reach out to me at Tamara T A, M, A R, a A, the letter K. Anderson with an O N author@gmail.com. I would love to hear from you. And even if you have a little bit of time, it would be awesome to have some helpers. Thanks, guys.
Tamara Anderson 8:35
Another devotional you can do is scripture study. And there are many ways that we can ponder that and study the Scriptures nowadays. Obviously, there's the standard way of simply reading chapters.
Tamara Anderson 8:49
There's so many different Bible devotionals out there where they give you a chapter verse, or something like that, a thought to go along with it. Those are fantastic ways to study.
Tamara Anderson 9:02
I've heard also of people who take like a Bible verse And they memorize it, and they say it themselves over and over. They post the verse, you know, on their bathroom mirror, in their car, on their phone, and they can just memorize a verse so that they can say that verse, it becomes meaningful to them. Perhaps it's your mantra, like my mantra is, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. And I can say that by heart, and I repeat it all the time, especially when I feel like I need to draw on the power of his strength. So that's a powerful way.
Tamara Anderson 9:38
There's also you can listen to the Scriptures now. There's so many apps that will read them to you and that's so amazing and fantastic. I'm so thankful we have this modern technology so you can be driving in the car and listening to your scriptures. It's just It's pretty, pretty amazing the resources that we have to connect with God through scripture study.
Tamara Anderson 10:03
And sometimes we'll just do the random open the Bible to a verse and it will open to exactly what we need to hear. And I've had that happen in my life before. So there's a lot of different ways that we can read and study the Scriptures.
Tamara Anderson 10:19
I'm thankful that that is one way that I can connect with God, because often I'll ask him questions, and sometimes he'll answer me through Scripture stories, or through the scriptures. So don't be surprised if that happens. If you have a question, and all of a sudden, it's being answered in a verse or in a song, as you are searching for those answers, God will give them to you.
Tamara Anderson 10:41
Another thing that you can do in a daily devotion is a meditation. And I have so many wonderful, amazing friends who meditate every day and you're like, well, Tamara, is meditation the same as prayer? And my answer to you is probably depends on how you do it. I've, I've had meditations where I ended up praying through a meditation.
Tamara Anderson 11:02
But often meditation is calming your mind and thinking one thought, and trying to block out everything else. Now we get distracted in meditations. And that's totally normal. So don't feel bad if you do. So if you pause and you took like two minutes, and you said, the word, God or connection, or help or wholeness, or peace or still, or heaven or something like that, you can just repeat that word over and over and come back to it if you get distracted. That is one way to do meditation is just learning to quiet your mind and increasing the time that you do that every time you try it.
Tamara Anderson 11:42
So maybe you start with two minutes for a week, then you move to three, then you move to five minutes, then 10. And it's just training yourself to be okay with stillness. We live in a world where there's constant need for it seems like looking at the Internet, or your phone and stuff like that, but it's good to learn to calm your mind. And kind of hear that inner God voice.
Tamara Anderson 12:07
I love the story of Elijah and how he went up to the mountain and there was a thunder, an earthquake and fire and all these things. And it wasn't until there was this still small voice that God was able to commune with Him. And I love that because that is the same way with us. There's a lot of chaos going on around us. And when we finally calm our minds, we can hear our inner God voice and hear God speaking to us--feel that peace. So that's a good way to meditate.
Tamara Anderson 12:39
I have another friend who likes to say, beautiful Bible phrases, while she breathes deeply and meditate. So she'll say things like Peace be still. And then breathe in and out. Peace be still and just repeat that over and over in her mind as she incorporates deep breathing into her meditation. Another phrase she loves to use is Be still and know that I am God. And I love that phrase as well.
Tamara Anderson 13:08
And so these are amazing things that I have done meditation before. I'm not super awesome at it. But it's a great way to kind of calm yourself as you either begin your day or end your day or in the middle of your day. And you're kind of going crazy. Take some deep breaths, do a little bit of meditation, see if you can connect with that inner God voice and feel of God's peace.
Tamara Anderson 13:31
So those are three ideas that I have that I use regularly on a daily basis. As far as connecting with God through devotional.
Tamara Anderson 13:40
There's one other way that I love and that is listening to gospel talks. And maybe there's some that you have a favorite speaker, who you love to listen to. And I love listening to those, or reading those. Those also help me connect with God because I'm listening to people preach about him or talk about him. And that helps me feel better connected to him every day.
Tamara Anderson 14:09
I love the verse in John chapter 15, verse five, where Jesus Christ says, "I am the vine, Ye are the branches. He that abideth in Me and I in him the same bringeth forth much fruit. For without me ye can do nothing." And I love that image of a vine, a main vine of a plant and that being Jesus Christ and us being the branches of that vine, and that as we draw from him we can draw nourishment and strength as we abide in Him and are connected to him. We can have that power and be God strong.
Tamara Anderson 14:45
So no matter what your daily devotional looks like, whether it's two minutes or an hour, take a moment each day to connect with God--Morning, middle of the day, evening, talk to him about one that is good for you and incorporate that connection with God. Hope on my friends!
Tamara Anderson 15:07
Hey, thanks so much for listening to today's show. If you like what you heard, subscribe so you can get your weekly dose of powerful stories of hope. I know there are many of you out there who are going through a hard time, and I hope you found useful things that you can apply to your own life in today's podcast. If you'd like to access the show notes of today's show, please visit my website stories of hope podcast.com. There you will find a summary of today's show, the transcript and one of my favorite takeaways. You know, if someone kept coming to mind during today's episode, perhaps that means that you should share this episode with them. Maybe there was a story shared or quote, or a scripture verse that they really, really need to hear. So go ahead and share this podcast. May God bless you, especially if you're struggling with hope to carry on and have the strength to keep going. When things get tough. Remember to walk with Christ and He will help you bear the burden. And above all else, remember, God loves you!
Transcribed by https://otter.ai