Asked to speak at a graduation ceremony this year, I tried to think about what I wish I had known when I was finishing high school. Since there can be some wisdom in hindsight, here goes.

I wish someone had told me about the importance of a daily quiet time, or devotions, or Bible study. It’s not that it was forbidden in the home as I grew up. My father commended Bible reading on an occasion when I tried it in high school. Perhaps others tried to let me know about these disciplines, and I did not listen.

It is hard to convey the importance of this discipline, perhaps because each of us approaches the subject from a different perspective. For those of us who did not grow up in homes with family worship or personal quiet time, the discovery and development of this discipline has been exhilarating, exasperating, difficult, and rewarding. It is also humbling because I have never felt that I have become an expert in it. Or, as soon as I think I am an expert, the Lord provides some experience that humbles me in my place.

This discipline is variously called quiet time or devotions or Bible study. Generally it includes a mixture of Bible study, prayer, and, perhaps, some memorization of Scripture and meditation on it.

As I have grown older, I also have found that vigorous physical exercise helps me make better use of the time in the morning. Usually I feel rather miserable when I wake up early. I also don’t like to memorize Scripture. It is hard. I don’t have a good memory. God sometimes tells me things in the verses I don’t want to hear. I have to confess sin when I memorize. So somehow, maybe to relieve one kind of pain with the distraction of another kind of pain, it helps me to run a couple of miles and memorize at the same time. I then come back for some Bible study with a clearer mental framework.

For those in their teens or twenties, or for anyone really, I urge this kind of discipline. Those moving out of Mom and Dad’s home are coming to the point in life when they are going to have to take this time on their own—not because Mom or Dad are requiring it, not because they are getting a grade for it, not because they are getting paid for it. This kind of time with the Lord is purely voluntary and needs to be motivated by a mixture of discipline and love for the Lord. There is little encouragement in the world for this time alone with the Lord. Very few companies will slot time in your schedule for it. No one gives pay raises for it. There are no tax breaks available for it. The rewards are spiritual in nature and bear fruit in the long run, not necessarily in the short term.

Here are four disciplines to include in this time:

Bible study. Read a chapter of the Bible every day. Write down a verse, or paraphrase what you have read in your own words. On a regular basis try to come up with some way of putting into practice what the Lord has told you.

Prayer. Learn to keep some written record of your prayers. Sometimes we pray for something, then we forget about the person or the prayer request. God may not answer right away. At the end of the year, you can review your prayer requests, and you see how He answered. Over a long period of time I have been surprised and grateful for the way the Lord answers prayer. The discipline of writing down some prayers helps provide a record of that blessing.

Andrew List. Keep an Andrew list (see John 1:40-42) of people to pray for to come to salvation in Christ. I remember praying for one man’s salvation for a number of years. I knew him from work, as a hard-drinking, gambling man who liked to give me a hard time about commentary I wrote in the newspaper about the woes of gambling. He was friendly about it, even inviting me to go to Las Vegas with him a few times so I could find out firsthand about what I was objecting to in the commentary. In turn I would give him Bible verses on little cards, and he would carefully place them on his work station. As he was dying he came to commitment to Christ, and I had never seen something so close to the story of the thief on the cross with Jesus.

Memory verses. Treasure these. If you keep them, and keep reviewing them, they will become like pieces of gold and silver in your pockets. My own life has been directed and redirected at times by verses I have memorized. They have a way of pointing me to a higher path that I could only find with the Lord’s help.

A good place to find this theme in Scripture is 2 Chronicles. It is also a good political science textbook, with divine inspiration. What we see there is how the good kings of Judah were praised not for military exploits, or balanced budgets, or constitutional amendments. They had work to do as kings, and the normal issues of government were part of the work. But the Lord evaluated each one on the basis of his walk with the Lord, on the basis of his heart for the Lord.

One example is King Jotham. “Jotham became mighty because he prepared his ways before the Lord his God” (2 Chron. 27:6).

Probably they did not call it quiet time, but reading 2 Chronicles gives some hint that the good kings were getting that time alone with the Lord, and the bad kings were neglecting this discipline.

I am thankful to the Lord for opening the door to these disciplines when He did in my life, through the help of many Christian friends and ministries, but especially through Second Reformed Presbyterian Church and Senior Pastor Roy Blackwood. He has set a pace for the rest of us in these matters, yet he has been careful to point us beyond himself to the Lord, who is the one we must look to and seek in the disciplines. To Him be the glory.

Russ is associate editor for the Indianapolis Star and contributing editor for the Reformed Presbyterian Witness. He is a ruling elder in the Second (Indianapolis, Ind.) RPC.