Enriching Your Quiet Time
Recently a participant in the “psychology of suffering” class I taught asked me, “I can see that your time with Jesus helps you deal with life’s pains. Tell me how you achieve that intimacy.”
So to you, my dear friend, I suggest the following principles:
Find a private, quiet place. Silence all your distractions — phones ringing, computers beeping, television mumbling, even dogs scratching and kitties purring.
2. Choose to lie down, or kneel, or go into a childpraying posture,— pick any one posture which you can maintain for 20 minutes. [You can move if you need to; this is not about your being a statue for the Lord.]
Have a pen and paper within reach.
Because I get antsy if I don’t know when I am done, I need to know when my “time is up.” So I honestly use the “timer” on my phone, even with it in silent mode.
Please realize that this discipline takes practice. When I first started this “quiet time” two years ago, I could only manage lying in silence for several minutes at a time. But each week I would add one more minute onto the interval. So voilá, I am now at 20 minutes. Be patient with yourself.
3. When I start my time with Jesus, I make sure I am “‘fessed up. ” Are all my sins confessed? Are all my negative emotions (like unforgiveness and irritation) brought up before the Lord?
Use this metaphor about the furnace in your basement heating your house: When you turn it on to warm your house, heat starts to run through ducts. I check that none of those ducts (in my soul) that are plugged. Then the Holy Spirit can blow through me without any blockage.
4. I try to picture myself with Jesus, removing the clutter of the world around me by closing my eyes. The place and circumstances I go to may change. But my “go to” is Jesus steering a skiff (small sail boat) on the Sea of Galilee with my sitting against his chest. I am looking either at him, fixing my eyes on Jesus, or forward to the place we are heading. You can pick where you would like to be — with Jesus in a garden, on a mountain side, or on a beach. He loves you uniquely and intimately so he’ll be where you want him to be.
5. Then I empty myself by deep breathing and asking the Holy Spirit to fill me. Every time a thought crosses my mind, I take it captive. That means, I give the thought a fleeting examination: Is it something (like an event, errand, task) I need to remember to do? If so, I write it on the paper, and then release it back to God. Is it something I need to share with someone Likewise, I write it down and release it.
I try to maintain silence in my head. The enemy’s goal is to steal this time by throwing worries at us or stupid earthly distractions. As you take the thoughts captive, the key question is this: Is this idea something relevant to my service in the kingdom of God or not? Write it down, if “yes;” and discard it if “no.”
Dealing with thoughts is the hard part of this discipline. I pretend I have a pin in my hand and when the thought floats by, after I give only a second of recognition (to categorize it), I pop it and it drifts off my mental radar.
6. For this exercise to be successful I must believe the Holy Spirit is within me. The Spirit of Jesus talks to me.
To build this understanding up, read through John 13 – 17. Develop a deeper awareness of how the Holy Spirit operates within you, giving you ideas about the Heavenly Father (as he did to Jesus). He is speaking to you in order to mold you into the image of Christ. The source of this flow of God’s ideas for you is the Word, something you need to feed your soul on at another time.
With that being said, jot down the ideas the Holy Spirit gives you. Sometimes, I receive nothing consciously during this time of silence But then occasionally, after I get up, I find that the Spirit has downloaded a blog or a prophetic word.
At other times, the Holy Spirit impresses me strongly with something so that I arise before the buzzer, and write what he wants. (That is what happened this morning to generate this blog.) Trust that the Holy Spirit is living within you and will speak with you. (John 14:17). Trust that Abba Father wants to teach you all things. (John 14: 26)
7. To enliven this experience, add some time at the end to do two-way journaling. Believing that you and God are speaking to each other, write down a concern or question you have for Abba Father. Perhaps, something as simple as “How can I know you better?” Then LISTEN. Write down the Holy Spirit’s response. Keep pressing in to that style of communication until your heart feels satisfied. As you grow in the Word, this journaling exercise becomes very powerful.
We live in a busy, busy world. Demands from family, job, neighbors, and church press on us. I can assure you, that if you seek FIRST the kingdom of God, all your heart-desires, all your earthly needs, will be met. Having this twenty minute quiet time with Jesus is a good start.
In Christ,
