How to Spend Time with God on Your Birthday

One of my sisters often spends extended time with God around her birthday. She will stay home, uncontactable for a couple of days, or book a retreat. I found this intriguing, so one year, as my birthday approached, I wondered how I could do something similar.

I did not set out to create something anyone else would ever see, but as it began to take shape, I realised it had the potential to bless others. I started by thinking about something for me, but was inspired to create something for to share.

The result is the Guided Birthday Journal: Reflect, Rejoice, Renew. It is available on Amazon now and is perfect for spending time with the Lord around your birthday.

How to Spend Time With God on Your Birthday

At this stage in my life, extended periods of solitude are particularly precious due to their rarity. If I have something I hope to achieve during such time, it can help to plan it out. When it came to spending time with God around my birthday, it was no different. I wanted to know in advance how I could best spend the time. I wanted steps I could turn to every year without the process becoming religious or stale. I wanted something transformational that would lead me to reflect on the past year and look forward to the next 12 months with purpose. I also wanted a way to record how I marked the blessing of another year of life.

Most of all, I wanted a way to mark my birthdays with God at the centre, no matter what season I was in. Let's face it, birthdays can be wonderful times of celebration, but sometimes they can be hard. Often birthdays bring up a range of thoughts, emotions, or memories as we reflect on our lives, hopes, and circumstances. We could be dealing with disappointment, grief, loneliness, or fear of the future. Thankfully, we don't need to fake or hide our feelings from God. We can and should bring them all to Him.

With my aims clear, I began to prayerfully consider how to spend my birthday with the Lord. I realised it was important to cover three main areas: the past, the present, and the future. I have tied these in to the Guided Birthday Journal. It has three main journaling sections: Reflect, Rejoice, and Renew.

Here's how and why you can use them to spend time with God on your birthday.

The Past

Birthdays can cause us to think about the past, particularly what has happened since our last birthday. Have things gone as we had expected? Have we achieved what we hoped? Do we want to mark it in the same way we have previously? With the same people? Have we or our relationships changed? What about our priorities — are they the same as they were a year ago? We might also consider how the past year has influenced our current perspectives and attitudes and how they could impact our future decisions.

We can casually consider these questions and more, or we can pause to reflect deeply on them. We can take our questions to God in prayer and listen for His answer. We can look for God's hand in our lives over the last year and consider our response to His shepherding.

Reflect with the Guided Birthday Journal

Have you noticed how the years seem to be moving at such a swift pace these days? It feels like we were recently marking the New Year, but now I am thinking about Christmas! With time flying by, it is easy to be carried along in life rather than living purposefully. Taking time to reflect or think carefully about our lives helps us to live with intention.

We can pray like Moses did:

So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom. Psalm 90:12

The word 'number' here means to weigh out. It does not mean simply putting a number to the days that have passed since we were born. Although that alone can give us pause for thought! To number our days means to consider the value of our time on earth. Reflecting on the past can make us aware of the value of the present and prepare us for the future. It can lead us to commit to applying God's wisdom to how we spend today and each day thereafter.

Numbering our days means recognising that even if we are blessed with long life from an earthly perspective, life is still brief and fleeting. See Psalm 103:15-16 for example. We should not think we have so many tomorrows that we can put off surrendering to Jesus as Lord. I don't only mean that in terms of salvation; it also applies to how we spend each day.

We can think of time as the currency of life. How have we spent it thus far? Have we frittered it away on things that don't matter, that moth and rot will destroy? Or have we spent our time storing up treasure in our time-without-end home?

Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. Matthew 6:19-21

If we don't take the time to regularly reflect on where we have been, where we are, and where we are going, we risk losing a great deal of knowledge, understanding, and wisdom. We must revisit lessons to secure them in our long-term memory and ensure we don't waste time relearning things because we did not know or care enough to hold them close. That's why the Keys to Success activity is one of my favourites in the Reflect section of the Guided Birthday Journal. It leads us to identify, reflect on, and record the lessons of the last year. Imagine the impact of doing this every birthday! You will build up a valuable list of lessons to review and even pass on. They will be keys to your future success.

Reflection is a key part of spending time with God on your birthday. Marking it by identifying what God has shown you over the past 12 months is a way of honouring Him. The Guided Birthday Journal helps you reflect on a range of areas, such as the highlights and hurdles of the past year, and God's presence in your story. It also leads you towards thanksgiving.

The Present

The significance of birthdays and expectations around marking them vary from person to person and even from season to season. If you have decided to spend some time with God as part of marking your birthday, spend time being present. We can make the mistake of looking back and then looking forward, without enjoying the blessing of today.

This is the day that the LORD has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it. Psalm 118:24

Rejoice with the Guided Birthday Journal

With the Guided Birthday Journal, spending time with God on your birthday will include space to rejoice. Does your soul know very well that you are fearfully and wonderfully made by God?

I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. Psalm 139:14

The Journal is not just for marking a milestone birthday or when you feel you have something to celebrate. This section helps you mark your birthday with a smile, regardless of the season. Whether you mark your birthday in a big way or more low-key, don't let your birthday pass without meditating on what the Bible says about you.

As you create a record of how you spent or marked your birthday, you will find prompts that direct your attention towards God. Through Scripture, you will be reminded of His love and faithfulness. If that is all you have to rejoice over on your birthday, you have more than enough!

1 Thessalonians 5:16 tells us to "rejoice always". This section helps us to do that as we trust in God's sovereignty and find satisfaction in His will.

The Future

When spending time with God on your birthday, think about the future. Jeremiah 29:11 tells us that God has plans for our lives, and they are good. Our birthdays are perfect opportunities to ask God about those plans, consider how well our lives align with them, and commit to making changes where necessary.

For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. Jeremiah 29:11

Renew with the Guided Birthday Journal

Through the Guided Birthday Journal, you will step into your future clearer about who you are in Christ, and more confident in God to see you through. You will have pages to look back on that will encourage and inspire you to in your walk with God.

The Renew section has two parts. The first focuses on renewing our identity. Perhaps you have heard this saying: If you want to change your life, change your mind. The Bible says it this way: "Be transformed by the renewal of your mind"

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. Romans 12:12

If we try to change our future by only changing external things, it may work for a little while. But eventually, we will fall back into old habits, which are rooted in current mindsets. Lasting change comes with a change of mindset. There is blessing in action, but this is not at the expense of allowing God to work on us. True transformation starts on the inside.

One of the most important actions we can take is to engage with the Word of God and prayer with consistency and purpose. That's why the Guided Birthday Journal has plenty of Scripture and invitations to prayer. It can also be used during periods of solitude and silence. It is certainly not necessary, but we could even consider bucking the tendency to indulge ourselves when celebrating through a short fast.

The second part of the Renew section is about vision. You won't simply identify your goals for the next twelve months; you'll be prompted to seek God's vision for your life. You will listen to God, plan with Him, and surrender your plans to the Lord, as you trust Him to shape a vision for your future that is better than you could ever imagine.

He is Lord

The Guided Birthday Journal is designed to lead us to recentre our lives on God. Another way to phrase this is to surrender to His Lordship.

That's why the Journal begins by affirming that God is more than a companion or guide with good suggestions on how we should live. When we input our current location and intended destination into a map app, we may get two or three suggested routes to choose from. With God, there is only one path, one way, and that is Jesus. That's what it means when we say Jesus is Lord. He is our only master, and we should follow only Him. We cannot walk in two directions simultaneously, and knowingly or unknowingly, we make choices about who we serve with every decision. Each choice has consequences, just like paths have different terrain, scenery, and destinations. God tells us to choose His Way because He knows that's the best and wisest choice.

Lordship is a critical theme for every believer and is woven throughout the activities, prompts and Scriptures in the journal. It is my hope that those who use the Guided Birthday Journal are guided towards a deeper revelation of the Lordship of Jesus Christ and continual surrender to Him alone.

Blessing in Action: How to Spend Time with God on Your Birthday

Moses asks God to teach us how to number our days, which means this is a skill we need to learn and develop, and we can do so with God's help. So why not pray Psalm 90:12 today?

So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom. Psalm 90:12