Today our bishop offered up a challenge to the congregation, and as I was listening to him I realized that I’d love to share in the experience with readers of my blog who might be interested in joining in a challenge to draw closer to God. You certainly don’t have to be LDS to participate, and I think this could turn into a really cool experience where those with different belief systems work toward a common goal of personal betterment.

The Challenge

For the next 30 days, spend 40 minutes per day devoted to personal scripture study and prayer.

The Rules

1. At least 10 minutes should be devoted to prayer and at least 10 minutes should be devoted to the scriptures. The remaining 20 minutes can be spent with either.
2. While doing these, you should be as alone as you can be and doing nothing else (like riding on the train, walking to work, etc.).
3. The 40 minutes can be in as many blocks of time as you’d like, but should be in at least two separate blocks during the day (like 30 minutes of scriptures with 5 minutes of prayer in the morning and then 5 minutes of prayer in the evening).

I’m taking on this challenge, and plan to restructure my sleeping habits a little bit to be able to get the time I need for private prayer and devotion before T1 wakes up each day. I’m doing this because I know that developing habits like these will bring me a greater measure of peace and a deeper relationship with God.

At the end of the month the members of our congregation will be sending in our stories about the experience and the bishop will compile them into a little booklet. I thought it would be edifying to do the same thing on That Wife if anyone will join me in it. At the end of June I’ll call for your experiences, and I”ll publish mine along with any that I receive (they can certainly be anonymous if you’d like).

June 1st is the day we’ll begin. Comment below, or email me with questions you might have, or to let me know that you’d like to join with me in this challenge!

Also:

• Nursery
• Trials
• The Church Bag