Daily Devotions: What Does That Mean?

What does daily devotions mean to you? What does it look like? I have struggled with daily devotions and time with the Lord just because of the word "Devotions". Growing up in an environment of dead religion I hated when people talked or mentioned daily devotions. My family was in and out of churches until I was 12 or 13 and then we never went back to church. They got involved in many different weird cult like groups and God became this abstract, distant and dead belief. Those around me continued with their "devotions" and I began to hate that word.

I have battled in the past years with the way I viewed who God is, what He does and how He works. By the ultimate grace of our Lord many of those skewed pictures and beliefs have been laid low and replaced with His true realities. One that I have still had to deal with is "devotions". I have been getting up at 5am to get in His presence, to spend time with Him in whatever way He leads. It has been an amazing time that starts my day off on the right foot, but I still deal with "I am doing this right? I am just doing a routine or is this the real thing?". I kind of argued with my husband about reading to the boys in the morning. I know it sounds stupid, but it was something I was struggling with. He has been reading to the boys every morning from a Chronological Daily Bible. I cringed when he started. I was just filled with fear and flashbacks of my past experiences with daily devo's. I actually fought him on this issue. Thankfully he listened to the Holy Spirit and not me. I was so afraid we were going to turn the boys off to the Word and quiet time with the Lord that I didn't want them to read any more.

The Lord began to show me how the boys really enjoyed this time with their dad and with the Lord. Yes, they squirm in their seats and fiddle with objects around the room, but they always have such deep thoughts and questions afterwards. The Lord showed me it is about the heart not the routine. Where was my heart when I was spending time with Him? Was it just a process for me or was I really enjoying the time I had with the Lord? A weight has been lifted off me because of this revelation. The Father even told me I could just call it my quiet time with Him instead of devotions. In years past my experience with devotions was so excruciating to me because it was just an empty process or routine. It was not filled with life or love. Now I have an experiential encounter with the Lord every morning. I am still learning how to do this. Sometimes I pray, sometimes I worship Him by just giving Him glory over and over again. Sometimes it's a combination of the Word, praise and prayer. So I ask you guys what does devotions mean to you? What does it look like? How do you like to spend time with the Father?. I am excited now to spend time with the Lord and not feel the sting of my past experiences with dead religion and daily devotions.

It's funny to me how I got hung up on a word. One word hindered me from experiencing the Lord. How many other "words" are holding me back from experiencing more of Him? I don't know but I am going to start finding that out.