And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart. —Jeremiah 29:13
We have come used to the idea of instant gratification. If we want to know something we Google it. We pick the most interesting headline from the top 10 search results. It is not so easy to get an answer from God. We need to learn to take time and effort to seek him.
We need depth in our study if we are to know God.
We are not used to giving long spans of attention to things anymore. We see a snap on Snapchat for 10 seconds. Twitter makes you compress your deepest thoughts to 140 characters. Vine lets you only post videos that are six seconds long. The most popular videos on the Internet are less than 5 minutes long, but you'll be lucky if viewers watch past the three minute mark. We scroll through countless photos on Instagram giving just seconds to each one, if that. People don't usually read entire websites, they just skim them.
Neil Postman wrote in Amusing Ourselves to Death about how people used to sit for so many hours to listen to the Lincoln and Douglas debates, and with television everything including presidential debates were shortened down to fit in an hour or less. Now most people won't even watch a whole hour of debate, but find a summary later.
The first of seven famous debates between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas took place on August 21, 1858, in Ottowa, Illinois. Their arrangement provided that Douglas would speak first, for one hour; Lincoln would take an hour and a half to reply; Douglas, a half hour to rebut Lincoln's reply. This debate was considerably shorter than those to which the two men were accustomed. In fact, they had tangled several times before, and all of their encounters had been much lengthier and more exhausting. For example, on October 16, 1854, in Peoria, Illinois, Douglas delivered a three-hour address to which Lincoln, by agreement, was to respond. When Lincoln's turn came, he reminded the audience that it was already 5 p.m., the he would probably require as much time as Douglas and that Douglas was still scheduled for a rebuttal. He proposed, therefore, that the audience go home, have dinner, and return refreshed for four more hours of talk. The audience amiably agreed, and matters proceeded as Lincoln had outlined.
"What kind of audience was this? Who were these people who could so cheerfully accommodate themselves to seven hours of oratory?"
The YouVersion Bible app on the Apple Watch will give you a notification of the verse of the day. You just have to look at your wrist. But technology isn't to blame. We used to have the daily bread cards that we used for devotionals. A lot of people limit their Bible study to Steams in the Desert or Morning and Evening.
Story about man who reads the Bible by point his finger at one random Bible verse each day.
“Whoso findeth a wife findeth a good thing, and obtaineth favour of the Lord.” Proverbs 18:22
“I say therefore to the unmarried and widows, It is good for them if they abide even as I.” 1 Corinthians 7:8
“Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; so shall ye be my disciples.” John 15:8
“And Jesus answered and said unto it, No man eat fruit of thee hereafter for ever. And his disciples heard it.” Mark 11:14
Beat your plowshares into swords, and your pruninghooks into spears: Joel 3:10
and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: Micah 4:3
Blessed is he that considereth the poor: the Lord will deliver him in time of trouble. Psalm 41:1
Neither shalt thou countenance a poor man in his cause. Exodus 23:3
Proverbs 26:4 Proverbs 26:5
Study the word. 2 Timothy 2:15
Hide the word in your heart Psalm 119:11
Meditate on the word. “This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein: for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success.” Joshua 1:8 KJV
Keep the word always in front of us. Deuteronomy 6:6-9 And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart: And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes. And thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house, and on thy gates.
God knew that humans tend to forget, and that is why He commanded the Jews to always be talking about the Law and to write it on their door and wear it on their arms.
It is not easy to develop good habits.
On average, it took people 66 days for a new healthy habit to feel automatic — things like eating a piece of fruit with lunch, or drinking a glass of water after breakfast, found the 2010 UK study, led by University College London research psychologist Pippa Lally. The data was self-reported, which means there’s a chance the people weren’t totally accurate, or honest. And the time it took for the habit to form varied widely: For some people, the healthy habits felt automatic after just 18 days — for others, it took 254 days.[Today.com](http://www.today.com/health/think-itll-take-21-days-make-your-resolution-habit-try-2D11826051)
It is better to do something small consistently than to try something big and get burned out in less than a week.