William Wilberforce on Private Devotions

This statue of Wilberforce is located in
Hull, England in the garden of the
house he was born in in 1759.
Photo: summonedbyfells

William Wilberforce (1759-1833), the man who fought so valiantly against slavery in Parliament, knew he could not do battle in the political trenches without pulling away to spend time with God every day.

Here is what he is quoted as saying about private devotions in John Piper’s book, Brothers, We Are Not Professionals: A Plea to Pastors for Radical Ministry.

This perpetual hurry of business and company ruins me in soul if not in body. More solitude and earlier hours! I suspect I have been allotting habitually too little time to religious exercises, as private devotion and religious meditation, Scripture-reading, etc. Hence I am lean and cold and hard. I had better allot two hours or an hour and a half daily. I have been keeping too late hours, and hence have had but a hurried half hour in a morning to myself. Surely the experience of all good men confirms the proposition that without a due measure of private devotions the soul will grow lean. But all may be done through prayer ... almighty prayer, I am ready to say ... and why not? For that it is almighty is only through the gracious ordination of the God of love and truth. O then, pray, pray, pray!

I don’t think Wilberforce was saying everyone should allot two hours every day for private devotions. Instead, he was saying he needed to allot that much time because if he didn’t he felt ruined in soul and body.

That made me think about how long I need to spend every day with the Maker. I don’t have an answer yet, but I’m working on one. How about you? How long do you need to spend with him?