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How to Handle Quiet Time when You’re in ADHD Overwhelm
When you’re too drained for quiet time, take the smallest step toward God that you can actually reach – open the app, read one verse, look out the window and say thank you. Not as a downgrade. Connection was always the point, not performance. Your routine can fall apart without your relationship falling apart with it.
Yesterday I did not do my quiet time.
I’m in a season of fatigue and crashing that I think is happening because my body is finally safe enough. There’s enough stability now that it can let down after literal years of not being safe, of having to be on, of not being able to take my foot off the gas. So I’m wrestling with how to care for my body while still doing the things I actually need to do. And in the middle of that, my quiet time has not been consistent.
Here’s the thing, though. My routine hasn’t been consistent … my rhythm has.
That distinction sounds like semantics until you’re the one lying in bed at 9pm doing math on how many days it’s been.
What’s the difference between a faith routine and a faith rhythm?
A routine is the shape – the time, the place, the order of operations (PEMDAS, anyone?). A rhythm is the underlying habit of leaning in to be with Jesus, which can survive the shape falling apart. When your routine breaks, you’ve lost structure. You haven’t lost the relationship. Those are two different losses, and Christian culture has trained us to grieve them as though they’re the same one.
A faith rhythm isn’t a routine you managed to keep. It’s the set of touchpoints you can still reach when the routine is gone.
I have those touchpoints built up and drawing me in, and they still work in a season like this one – because they’re not drowned out by shame. They’re not overshadowed by guilt that I’m not doing enough. I know there’s something good and beautiful and comforting and peaceful for me on the other side of them.
That’s the whole difference. Not willpower. Not discipline. Whether the thing pulls you toward God or reminds you that you’re behind.
What counts as time with God when you’re running on empty?
The small things count. Opening your bible app and reading the verse of the day counts. Walking past your window, looking at your backyard, and being grateful for the beauty God put in your life counts. Opening your Bible to a random page and reading the first couple of verses you land on counts. These aren’t consolation prizes for the days you couldn’t manage the real thing. They’re touchpoints, and touchpoints are how relationships actually work.
And here’s what I’ve noticed: they lead somewhere.
The other day the verse of the day was in Amos 5. Just the one verse. But I ended up reading the entire chapter, then journaling some thoughts on it, and now I’m working on a whole podcast episode about Amos 5. That whole flow came from organic, genuine curiosity – because I told myself, okay, I’ll take this one teeny tiny step and open the app, then my ADHD-having, rabbit-hole-loving brain felt safe enough to take it from there. On a curiosity voyage as Dustin from Stranger Things might say.
That’s not always what happens. Sometimes the verse is the whole thing and you close the app. That counts too.
(Here’s that podcast episode, btw.)
What I’ve built is an ecosystem that supports connection and curiosity – one where opening the app leads to looking up words in the original text, which leads to other passages, which leads to listening to podcasts (The Bible Project is my favorite). Instead of an ecosystem rooted in shame and obligation and guilt and perfectionism and not measuring up.
Why doesn’t “just open your Bible” work when you’re this tired?
Because the standard advice isn’t really “just open your Bible for five minutes.” It’s open your Bible and get through it – with “it” being whatever your cultural understanding of time with God is supposed to look like (read: Pinterest-perfect, aesthetically-pleasing setups complete with candles, steaming mugs, and no unfinished tasks hanging over your head, so aka, not reality). Anything less registers as giving God less than He deserves. That framing is what makes the small step feel pointless instead of possible.
And I think that view is genuinely harmful, because of what it does to the math underneath.
We are looking at our time and our effort and our performance as the offering. So when our time and our performance and our effort is the offering, then if we don’t give God what feels like the ideal, we feel like we’re Cain showing up to the offering instead of Abel. Like if we don’t give God the best performance, we’re not giving Him what He requires of us.
‘In the course of time Cain brought to the LORD an offering of the fruit of the ground, and Abel for his part brought of the firstlings of his flock, their fat portions. And the LORD had regard for Abel and his offering, but for Cain and his offering he had no regard. So Cain was very angry, and his countenance fell. ‘
But what God requires of us is to act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with our God.
‘ He has told you, O mortal, what is good, and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice and to love kindness and to walk humbly with your God? ‘
It’s not sitting down at your kitchen table with your Bible and your highlighters and making sure you check off every single box and answer every single question in your devotional in complete sentences.
There’s another version of this that runs deeper, and it’s worth saying plainly: the enemy doesn’t need you to renounce your faith and leave the church and hate Christ. He just needs you off track just a teeny little bit. He just needs your relationship with Christ turned into Religion™ that goes through the motions – a laundry list of things to do instead of checkpoints of real, life-giving connection.
What would Jesus say to a woman who hasn’t read her Bible in three weeks?
Ask what He actually measured. Did Jesus measure devotion by how much time someone spent in their Bible? Did He measure whether someone was worthy to be His disciple by how many texts they could quote, or how much study they’d completed? No. Not at all. The people Jesus saw as worthy were often, just a few moments before, completely wretched by every standard their culture used.
Take the woman at the well.
By all the criteria that mattered in that day, she didn’t meet a single one. She was a Samaritan. She was a woman. She’d been married multiple times. She was living with someone who wasn’t her husband. By every standard of what a good religious person looked like, she was completely and utterly unworthy.
But Jesus saw past that and saw her heart. He saw her willingness.
(Check out John 4:5-29 for a refresher if you haven’t read the story in a while.)
So what matters is, in fact, not the things we checked off our list yesterday. It’s how willing are we to put down what we’re carrying and tune our hearts to Him.
And the enemy has convinced the church – has used Christian culture to convince us – that being willing has to look a certain way. Being willing means having done your quiet time. It means only listening to worship music. It means volunteering every week at church, or meeting regularly with your Bible study and having the homework done, because if it’s not done, that means you didn’t give God your full attention this week.
But what if that wasn’t true at all, and in fact was missing the point entirely?
Devotion is going to look different for every single person on the outside. On the inside, it’s going to look the same. It’s going to look like Jesus.
Less like having a Bible that’s nicely color-coded and filled with notes. More like genuinely wondering how you could be more like Christ, and genuinely wanting to make changes, and genuinely saying God, change my heart to be more like Yours.
What about the shame cycle?
The cycle works like this: shame about missing your quiet time makes you avoid it. Avoiding it builds more shame. Eventually the shame gets big enough that you force yourself to do it – and now it’s not enjoyable, it’s not peaceful, and you don’t get much from it, because you did it out of obligation. Which damages the relationship. Which produces more shame. And it repeats, and the shame builds and builds, and you never actually connect.
I can mostly stay out of that cycle now, and not because I have more discipline than you. It’s because I’ve spent years destigmatizing how my ADHD affects my ability to actually live out my faith.
Think about your closest friendships. Not the surface-level ones – the real ones. You don’t maintain those out of obligation. Sure, there are times you don’t feel like reaching out and you know it’s the right move anyway. That happens in faith too. But relationships are built organically, on love and trust and mutual adoration and respect and mutual effort. That doesn’t come out of pure obligation.
Neither does this one.
So here’s your one thing for today: pick your smallest possible touch point and go do it. Open the app. Look out the window. Read one verse and close the book. Don’t make it a routine yet. Just prove to yourself it still counts.
What’s your smallest touch point?
Take the smallest step toward God you can actually reach. Open a Bible app and read one verse. Look out a window and be grateful. These aren’t downgrades from real devotion – they’re touchpoints, and touchpoints are how relationships work. The goal is connection, not a completed routine.
A routine is the shape – the time, the place, the order of operations. A rhythm is the underlying habit of leaning on Jesus, which survives the shape falling apart. When a routine breaks, you’ve lost structure, not a relationship. Christian culture trains us to grieve those as the same loss. They aren’t.
Missing a quiet time is not the measure Scripture uses for devotion. Jesus didn’t evaluate people by how much time they spent studying or how many texts they could quote. What matters is willingness – whether you’re ready to put down what you’re carrying and turn toward Him.
Because the advice usually isn’t really about five minutes. It carries an unspoken standard of what time with God is supposed to look like, and anything less registers as failure. That framing turns the small step into proof you’re behind, instead of a real step.
Name the cycle first: shame leads to avoidance, avoidance builds more shame, and eventually you force yourself into a practice that’s now obligation instead of connection – which damages the relationship and produces more shame. Breaking it starts with removing the stigma, not adding more discipline.
