Defining Devotion

Noah Webster
Photo: Public Domain

Words fascinate me.

That’s why I was taken by the way the word “devotion” is defined in Noah Webster’s 1828 Dictionary. A blog called Metro Moms published a post about these definitions a few years ago. I thought it would be interesting to address these definitions from the male perspective:

A solemn attention to the Supreme Being in worship; a yielding of the heart and affections to God, with reverence, faith and piety, in religious duties, particularly in prayer and meditation; devoutness.

Recently I confessed to a friend that I was dreading the next couple of weeks because I’ve worked my way up to the book of Ezekiel during my morning devotions. Ezekiel has always been a difficult book for me to grasp. I often find my mind wandering as I’m read it. True devotion would mean giving solemn attention to God with a heart that yields to him while I’m reading his Word – even the parts that are hard to grasp.

Prayer to the Supreme Being. A Christian will be regular in his morning and evening devotions.

While there is a sense of duty, and devoutness in these definitions, I get the sense that being regular in our morning and evening devotions should be done more out of love for the Father than anything else. If his grace doesn’t cause us to yearn to meet with him regularly, something is wrong. As men, we often show more devotion for much lesser causes – sports, movies, fishing, the pursuit of a woman, to name a few.

Ardent love or affection; attachment manifested by constant attention; as, the duke was distinguished by his devotion to the king, and to the interest of the nation.

There we have it – be definition, devotion is ardent love or affection, manifested by constant attention. For those of us who are married, we surely exhibited this definition as we pursued the woman we wanted to marry. For many of us who are single, myself included, it hasn’t been for a lack of effort. We’ve sent flowers. We’ve pulled out chairs and opened doors. We made an effort because our love compelled us to.

When is the last time you felt that way about approaching your time alone with God?