This article by Donald Whitney on the danger of drifting away from a daily time of communion with God through Bible reading and prayer is true and scary, but also strangely motivating and encouraging. It’s a reminder that something real is happening when you meet with God daily. An excerpt from “Spiritual Disciplines and the Sinkhole Syndrome”:
As the pressures of life increase and more deadlines loom, it becomes harder to maintain time for the devotional life. And herein is where the erosion begins.
At the outset it’s likely that very few will know when the hidden part of your spiritual life begins crumbling. Just as imperceptible movements of water underground can carry away the earth beneath long before anyone on the surface perceives it, so the pressures of life can secretly displace the soil of our private spiritual disciplines long before the impact of their absence is visible to others. The more public parts of a Christian’s life, such as church involvement and various forms of ministry, can often continue with little observable change right up until the awful moment of collapse and the hypocrisy is revealed....
Never be deceived by the temptation to think that with the increasing spiritual maturity you expect to come with age, the less you will need to feast your soul on Christ through the Bible and prayer. What Jesus prayed in John 17:17 for all His followers—“Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth”—applies to us all throughout our lives.
I just finished Matt Papa’s Look and Live, and I recommend it to you if you need a jump start for your devotional time.