A Telling Conversation

In one of the discipleship groups I lead, we were talking about the importance of spending time with God every day. If you just think about it for a short time, it makes sense and is hard to argue with. If we are going to have a meaningful, productive and impactful Christian life, it has to include prioritizing time with the Father. Even if you're not convinced, there's plenty of Scripture to back it up. For example,

• Psalm 46:10 - "Be still and know that I am God."
• Matthew 6:6 - Jesus' wisdom when the disciples asked how to pray.
• Matthew 6:33 - Seeking the Kingdom first.
• James 4:8 - "Draw near to God and He will draw hear to you."

How are we going to be about the Father's business if we don't intimately know the Father? And how are we going to intimately know the Father if we don't spend time communicating with Him and He with us.

As our conversation about quiet time continued, we discovered that some had an occasional quiet time. Others tried to have one every morning or every night. Then we talked about the things we did during the time we spend with God. Most included praying. And some included reading the Bible directly or following a devotional book of some kind. But no one included meditating or just taking time to actually listen to God.

I confessed that lots of times my quiet time with God each morning consisted of me blasting through prayer requests. I started a "prayer wall" at my house this past summer. I list on there the names of people I feel the Lord has led me to pray for each day. (Some of you reading this are on that list.) The list has gotten longer and longer, and I'm always relucant to take someone's name off unless they were on there for a specific purpose and the prayer has been answered. But then I'm like, does that mean I stop praying for them?

I lead at least three discipleship groups a week where we are reading a book and/or following a Bible study, so that can be a lot of prep time. Plus, what's bad for me is, I wake up in the morning and my mind is always going 1,000 miles an hour with all the things I need to get done that day. And I often find myself rushing through my time with God just so I can get on with the day. (I just read that sentence back and it sounds ridiculous). Turns out, I'm not the only one. That hurry-up-and-get-this-over-with mentality seems to be pretty common among quiet-timers.

I asked the group if they ever spent time with God where they weren't reading anything or praying anything, but just listening for Him. Everyone said no. But everyone also thought that was a good idea. Who likes having a one-way conversation with someone? I have had more than a few conversations where someone talked non-stop for a while, then took a breath and said, "I gotta go". When that happens, I sometimes feel like God goes, "Well now you know how I feel". So we decided to do something about those one-sided conversations of our quiet times.

CHALLENGE: Do you set aside time to spend with God every day? Or regularly? Think about what you do during your quiet time. Does it seem productive and meaningful, or do you just feel like you're going through the motions and trying to get it over with? What could change that attitude?

Results Not Encouraging

I'm going to share what I recommended my group to try for the next week. Let me preface this by saying that I think one of the best things someone can do for their Spiritual life is to build in Spiritual disciplines. If you want to become a better reader, you have to discipline yourself to read more. If you want to become a better athlete, you have to discipline yourself to work out, train, practice. If you want to become a better student, you have to discipline yourself to use your free time wisely to allow time to study and do assignments.

Becoming disciplined in your Spiritual walk is no different. We have to take time, change priorities, train, practice. Sometimes it's good to put structure and even numbers in place in order to build discipline. Runners put times to almost everything they do. Piano players use reptition to train their minds, fingers and feet to work together to create beautiful music. It's okay to build markers into your Spiritual life. It sounds a little legalistic, but some timed repetition in Spiritual matters can take you a long way toward a disciplined life of following Jesus.

All that to say: I recommended that everyone build some time into their quiet time to just listen for God--beyond listening via a devotional guide or via Scripture. I'm talking about just sitting quietly and listening for God. I suggested that everyone add one minute to their quiet time over the next week, and to actually time themselves, to just sit quietly and listen to God.

When we came back the next week, the results were not encouraging. When I asked if anyone heard anything from God, everyone said that all they "heard" were their brains going 1,000 miles an hour thinking about anything and everything. I'm not sure I was surprised. In the world we live in where there's constant noise and information is being pumped into our bodies through our eyes and ears, most people (Christian or not) don't have any idea what to do with complete silence. It's almost like our minds and bodies are addicted to information. There's no concept of turning off the fire hose of input from the world and just sitting quietly and listening for the Heavenly Father to speak to us.

If you're wondering how you even know if God is speaking to you, take a look back at the last four devotional challenges where I extensively talk about how to know when God is speaking to you.

We all agreed that timing ourselves to listen was still a good idea. Psalm 27:14 and Psalm 37:7 are good verses on waiting on the Lord. So, we agreed to try again: 1 minute in complete silence just listening every day for the next week.

CHALLENGE: Would you be willing to build some "quiet" into your quiet time? How do you feel about timing yourself? Give it a try and see how it goes.

What Has Worked for Me

A few years ago, I was really struggling to sleep at night. In figuring that out, it occurred to me that I rarely had pleasant dreams. All of my dreams, when I could remember them the next day, were chaotic, frightening, and sometimes extremely sinful in nature. I would lie awake sometimes for hours trying to fall asleep, or when I would wake up, I could never fall back asleep.

One day the Lord planted a thought in my head: when you're having trouble sleeping, ask Jesus to go on a journey with you. Sounded a little crazy at the time, but I thought I would give it a try. So every night as I closed my eyes, I was like, "OK Jesus. Where do you want to go tonight?" Sometimes I would think of somewhere I would like for us to go. Other times, Jesus would bring something to mind. Sometimes it was a place I loved to go and sometimes it was a place I felt like I needed to go back to that wasn't something I loved.

I'm not exaggerating when I tell you that these journeys were awesome! Many times I would fall asleep right in the middle of the journey. But I soon started to sleep better and those awful dreams stopped. And, I felt like I came to know Jesus at a much deeper and personal level. I got just as much out of going to the more painful places as I did going to the more pleasant ones. The process forced me to focus on time with Jesus, so my mind didn't wander off to who knows where.

I'll share one of our journeys that was life-changing. Then I'll get to the point I want to make. One night I was thinking about things that I loved to do. One of those is walking on the beach. So peaceful. And I've had some of my greatest Spiritual moments walking along a quiet, deserted beach. So, I asked Jesus to come walk on the beach with me. As I imagined us walking along, Jesus asked me a question: "Do you know why I'm walking with you?" I wasn't sure why and I wasn't sure where He was going to that question. Eventually He said, "It's because I want do." That stopped me dead in my tracks. He continued, "I'm just walking with you because I love to spend time with you. I'm not out to get something from you. I don't have an agenda. I just love being with you."

That was a game changer for me. I mean, I think I already knew those things about Jesus, but I'm not sure I really believed them--until I heard it straight from Him. I will never forget that journey. That moment when I truly realized that Jesus loved me for me. I realized that I had spent a lot of time in my life thinking I wasn't worthy for anybody to spend time with me, let alone Jesus Himself.

I share that story for a couple of reasons. First, you really never know what the Lord might want to tell you if you would just take the time to listen. Second, I want to give you something you might try when it comes to getting "quiet" in your "quiet time". Instead of just letting your mind wander off in every direction. Instead of worrying about everything you have to do today. Instead of replaying conversations and "what if's" over and over in your head. Maybe just ask Jesus to go on a journey with you. And let me say this: there's nothing magic about the time of day. And it doesn't have to be an imaginary journey. You can actually invite the Lord to go with you on a real-life journey you feel like taking! You can get quiet with the Lord any time of the day or night.

CHALLENGE: What do you think about the idea of getting quiet with the Lord? Read Matthew 28:20, Hebrews 13:5, and Psalm 46:1. What do these verses say about how and when we have access to our Heavenly Father?

Working "On" Not Just "In"

There's a saying that most business owners have heard and very often try to practice. The saying goes like this: "It's important to set aside time to work on the business and not just in the business.:" Business owners often spend so much time working in the day to day activity of the business, they rarely take time to make the business better--they rarely take time to work on the business. The same is often true of your life as a student. If you spend all your time buried in studying, doing homework and extracurricular acitivities, you may not realize that there are things you could change to make yourself more organized, efficient and productive. So, you're actually spending less time because you're working smarter, not harder.

The same is true for our Spiritual walk. We have to take time not just to consider what we are doing, but also how we are doing it. Let's be honest: our quiet time could use some time to work "on" it, not just "in" it. The Lord will provide that kind of guidance to you. Proberbs 3:5-6 reminds us that we can go to God and confess things like:

• Lord, I don't know how to pray.
• Lord, I don't know how to listen for You.
• Lord, I don't know how to be completely quiet.
• Lord, I don't know how to make time in my schedule to spend with You.

Rather than just feeling bad about what you're not doing, ask the Lord to help you. He is always faithful to help you in any situation, including how you interact in your relationship with Him.

CHALLENGE: What are some things about your quiet time (or lack thereof) that you need to confess to God? Take time to confess those to Him and then allow Him to build new disciplines into your life, and even change the ones that are there. Let Him convince you that the most important part of your life as a follower of Jesus is the time you spend alone with Him.