Five Ways to Sit at His Feet

Do you ever put tasks ahead of spending time with Jesus?

A story in Luke 10 tells of two sisters and how they spent their time when Jesus came one day for a visit. Martha was busy scurrying to get to the end of her “to-do list,” but Mary chose a different path. She settled herself at Jesus’ feet, soaking in His words and His presence.

Perhaps today we can set aside our to-do lists until we’ve mimicked Mary. Let’s stop scurrying and be seated instead. There is always plenty of room at His feet.

Here are five ways to slow down and soak in the presence of Jesus:

1. Give your to-do list to the Lord.

Sometimes it is so hard to hear the Lord’s voice through all of the hustle of our day. We stress and obsess about our to-do list and all of our many appointments. The best way to focus in on our time with God {and to leave our to-do list behind} is actually to take our to-do list along with us!

Get alone and get quiet. Ask God to bring to your mind all that you must get done. Make a list of these things. Then, spend time praying through each item on the list.

As God brings more tasks to your mind, write them down. Don’t worry that it is unspiritual to stop halfway through a prayer and jot an item down. It helps you to clear your mind and then allows you to focus better on your time alone with God. He is concerned about all of the details of our life even if it is our plan to go grocery shopping or run to the dry cleaners.

2. Get intentional.

Treat your time alone with God as serious as any other appointment you have. When you have to go to the dentist, you brush your teeth and make sure you show up on time. Why do we assume our time alone with God will just happen spontaneously? Learn to treat it with intentionality. Enter in the time you will spend with God in your digital calendar or write it in your paper planner. You can even set an alarm on your phone. Have a designated time and stick to it.

3. Read and write.

Get a hold of a good devotional book or Bible study workbook. You can check out some of my favorites here. Use them to help you know where to read in the Bible. But don’t just read the Bible. Write your thoughts down too.

Keeping a journal will help you grow your relationship with God. You will process as you write out your thoughts. Also learn to both read and write prayers. Read prayers in the book of Psalms out loud to God. Then, write out your own specific prayers to Him as well. It will amaze you when you go back later and see the ways that God answered your prayers.

4. Make a recording and memorize.

Ever vowed to memorize scripture but then failed to follow through? One way to remedy this is to memorize verses by listening to them audibly over and over again in your own voice.  Use your phone’s voice memo app to record yourself reading out loud any verses or passages of scripture you would like to commit to memory. Then, pop in your headphones and listen to the verses each day as you walk, do housework, or cook dinner. It makes it so much easier to cement the words in your in your mind this way!

5. Discover the Bible’s non-negotiables.

Grab a Bible and a notebook. Pick a New Testament book such as James or Colossians. Read it through stopping each time you see a non-negotiable command that we as Christians are supposed to do. When you come across one, write it down. For example:  James 1:19-21 (CSB) says…

“My dear brothers and sisters, understand this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to anger, for human anger does not accomplish God’s righteousness. Therefore, ridding yourselves of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent, humbly receive the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.”

So you would write in your notebook:

When dealing with others, I need to:

~ Be quick to listen

~ Be slow to speak

~ Be slow to get angry because being angry doesn’t accomplish the things of God.

I must also:

~ Get rid of that which is morally wrong and evil.

~ I need to spend time planting the word of God humbly in my heart. It will save me!

When we read the Bible, we learn. However, when we write out the commands in a way that is personal to us, we allow the word to take root deep within our hearts. This will help us the next time we are faced with a situation where we need to react in a godly manner but find it challenging. When we have trained our brain to recall the non-negotiables of a Christian’s behavior, it allows us to act, and react, in a much better way.

Free Printable

Here’s a printable reminder of this list for you.

Blessings to you as you sit at his feet.

Your life is loud. But if you will just press pause for a few minutes each day, you can discover what Jesus longs to give you: His peace.

Whether you’re a working professional, a wife, a mom, a sister, an aunt, a daughter-in-law, or any combination of these, your life is busy. And no matter what stage of life you may find yourself in, what your hurried and overcrowded heart needs most is rest. In Settle My Soul, my co-author Ruth Schwenk and I invite you to carve out a few moments in your day to deepen your relationship with the Lord through 100 encouraging devotions. 

Settle My Soul, devotional by Karen Ehman and Ruth Schwenk.

**affiliate links may be included at no additional cost to you. I only recommend products that bring value to my readers’ lives.

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1,254 Comments

  1. That was a very encouraging post about sitting at the feet of Jesus. It’s back to the basics for me. Thank God for you and God bless you.

  2. I’m retired and my best and most precious time alone with the Lord is in the mornings right after my husband goes to work part time but isn’t gone more than two hours so that time is crucial. I have an on again/off again job I do out out of my home which is a distraction that sometimes takes this precious time away to which grieves me sometimes. We no longer own a TV which helps but I do own an electronic device which distracts me sometimes and can cause anxiety from news networks of all the disturbing things that’s going on in the world. I pray at night before I go to sleep which is good but not like the morning time when I’m awake and more alert. I also find my memory isn’t like it used to be probably due to my age. I watch sermons, hear other’s testimonies, etc. on my iPad but nothing is more precious than spending time alone with our Savior.

  3. Hi,
    I’m directing a christian camp this summer, and was wondering if I could adapt this post to include it in my girls’ bible study methods part of their notebooks?

    Thanks,
    Catie

  4. This is the way I spend my mornings before work every day. How very privileged we are to have pen and paper and notebook and Bible. The land of the free.

  5. Thank you for these practical tips. What distracts me the most is everything else. I find it hard to just sit and be still.

  6. Facebook can be distracting, I am noticing, I cannot do quiet time on the computer, notebook and bible only! If my kids are awake, It’s hard to do it as well, I try to make a goal, devotionals in the morning and in the evening right before bed!

  7. Poor time management is my struggle…I get so distracted by the “things” and my time just flits away.

  8. Thank you for this article. I am really looking to be closer to God. I am also looking to constantly learn and improve myself for God and to live my life how He wants me to live. I pray I find what He wants me to do with my talents and gifts.

  9. Most of the time, it is my husband or 7 year old son that interrupt my devotional time. Then when all physical distractions are gone, the mental ones begin…the things I should be doing, the chores I really need to complete, then the enemy uses my weaknesses and failures against me that I am not “worthy to sit” at Jesus’s feet.

  10. I have two little chihuahuas that inevitably want to snuggle up and get some tummy rubbing right when I sit down to read my Bible. Every. Single. Time. :)

  11. […] 1. 5 Ways to Sit at His Feet @ Karen Ehman
    I read your blog on Reverse Lent Challenge. It is a delight to read.

    Talking about being intentional with Daily Devotion, I made a Prayer List and would go over it with additions as necessary. As my Prayer List grow longer, I require longer time; longer time to be seated still. It occurred to me that being still with God may not require being immobile in one place, but keeping still my mind and my heart toward the thought of God. Does God still know I am worshipping him this day if I were to leave the one corner in my home to catch my train to work? As I take the rest of my daily time with God, I am reminded to even pray for those who are not in my list, but also for those homes I pass by, for those who are on the platform waiting for the train, for those who are travelling also in the same train, including the Train Operator, for those who are driving on the Express Way, back from work or going to work, for those they work with and go home to. I take my morning prayer with me on my way to work and I leave it to God to work on each one of them. In my morning ride, I read the Bible verses for the day on my cell phone; sitting still in the train, could be an intentional time to sit at God’s feet.

  12. Hi, this article is just so inspiring! Thanks for sharing this. Could I translate this to Spanish and publish it on my own blog with a link to your original in English? Please let me know. Many thanks!! ?

  13. For me it’s the season of life I am currently in. I find myself worrying about everything and then at the end of the day, I would just sleep and pray that tomorrow will be a new day to face and that I should just live one day at a time because I don’t even know I can wake up the following day.

  14. I am so glad i discovered this post as i am looking for ways to have a deeper walk with my Lord. Yes. It is so easy to be distracted. For me there is something else i want to check on the internet or another book to read. I find study guides helps me to stay focused and i am lost if i dont have one. Writing out my prayers also helps too. Its also a faith booster because than i can tell when He has answered my prayer.

  15. As soon as possible this, I knew it was for me. And look it took me two days to get to it. I have had this tab open on my tablet on my computer reminding me that I needed to read it and it wasn’t until now that I got to it. That is how busy I think I am. But God has been doing a work on me for the past probably seven or eight weeks. I have scheduled my time to where I am waking up 20 minutes early and the first thing I try and do is pray in the morning so my first thoughts are focused on Him and giving Him my attention to direct my day. And I continue to pray through the day, and I also have my daily Bible Reading, a Bible in a year. I’m also doing the Made Crave action plan, I just finished up that made to crave the first book and I will be doing the whole Proverbs series of books for the year. And also I am signed up with hello mornings and more studying Ruth although I’m behind in that series. I did a study with them last year, and I stayed behind in that but months later is when God had me waking up and getting on my knees in the morning and doing daily exercises so the seeds were planted and the fruit was produced much later. So something very good came out of that. So that’s what makes me go back to it! Also God has called me to go to a different church, actually to go back to church. And bring my son with me. Hopefully we will find roots somewhere. Every day I’m walking to do 3 miles, a few months ago I couldn’t walk three houses down. I’ve been sick for 13 years and in the hospital with over 13 surgeries. Big changes are happening in my life. But I’m seeking God more. I want him to heal me mentally and physically. I don’t want to be on any medicine. Just a few weeks ago the counselor told me to stop writing lists and the psychiatrist told me to only put 3 to 5 items on my list. I have a tendency to write notebook size list of 3 to 4 pages of to dos, and then I hold onto them for the next day and they accumulate and I carried them over and I can’t throw them away and I hold onto them for years and I pack them into boxes or try to boxes or try to consolidate them, or make lists on multiple programs in my computer. Or different apps on my tablet. They’re just everywhere and God revealed to me that in my 39 years I’ve lived, and if my two dues don’t get done, the world doesn’t end. Yes somethings are important and I need to remember them especially since I have some memory issues. And maybe I should write down 3 to 5 things. But that’s it, and then I should enjoy my day and enjoy the people in my life and I should dedicate my life to God and serving others… And I should let go of that control and just let my day unfold and trust that God will lead me to do what needs to get done. I will definitely go back and read the articles you recommended and I’m going to sign up for your Facebook and Twitter and your articles. And I really would love to win your giveaway, your ring binder -with the elastic on the side I found one at Big Lots for $2.00, I got one and I’m writing my verses in it and the special go to scripts! It’s perfect, and I love it, and it’s travel size. And they only had one of them and I’ve checked and gone back and I can’t find another. So it you can get a hold of flat of them for me I’ll pay the shipping if you get them to me! And mines not cute or any thing but they’re just right for the job!

    I was so excited that when I got here and read the article to find out that you weren’t doing the giveaway until Tuesday even when I procrastinated I still got here in time! Whoo hoo! I’ve been praying on being still, and resting in God, for about a month. Do you have any great verses or resources on this, because my literally manic head, is not aligning with this. The best I get is when I take that special time during the day to do mine to the 3 miles of walking and I put my Christian music and and I try & all thoughts set me and God and what he would have me think about. And I just tried to empty my mind of everything. And that’s when I try and spend 45 minutes to an hour and I get physically exerted and exhausted and I guess just surrender more and it seems to work a little bit but I just I have trouble getting quiet!

    Thank you for this article, I’m excited to read on!
    Blessings,
    Kelly smith

  16. I am a retried empty-nester. While I have a devotional time every morning (almost), I still struggle with distractions. My mind often wanders to the most inconsequential of things. #2, being intentional, is difficult for me. Often, I try to imagine what an earthly dignitary would think of my lack of attentiveness. If I would certainly focus during an audience with the Queen of England, doesn’t the God of all creation deserve the same – and more?
    My desire during this season of Lent is to identify, and repent of the things I allow to distract me, and seek to give Him my undivided attention.

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