Feb 27, 2023
S
For the last 5 months I have been challenged through the
RealMen300 group I'm a part of to have a consistent quiet time with
God
I wanted to share a few things I have learned and offer some
ideas for why you should consider adding or increasing your quiet
time and some ways to go about doing it.
Specifically, I'd like to talk about they Why, the What, and
the How of Quiet times.
Let's start with the Why.
As Christians, I think we can all agree our most important
relationship should be with our Creator.
The question is, how do we actually make it our most important
relationship. As with any relationship, it's not enough just
to say it's important or that it's our most important relationship.
What are we actually DOING to show that.
As with any relationship, an important measure of the value we
place on our relationship with God is how much time do we devote
with HIm and to what degree to we do what pleases Him. I'll
save the discussion of what it mean to do what please Him for
another episode, but how do we measure both the quality and
quantity of time we spend with Him.
One measure is how much we talk with Him in prayer, both in
terms of quantity, i.e. total time spent in prayer, frequency i.e.
how often we pray, and quality, i.e. how genuine and heartfelt is
our prayer vs. just being a check-the-box repetition.
So to summarize, the Why we should want to do a Quiet time is
because God is our most important relationship and spending time
with Him is an important way to demonstrate it's our most important
relationship.
Now let's talk about the WHAT.
What a quiet time means to me is devoting a specific time
every day to do 3 things, pray to God, read the Bible, and journal
which is basically asking God questions and writing down what You
believe He is saying to you in response, i.e. having a 2-way
conversation.
Let's talk about each of those points.
First, devoting a specific time. With most habits, I've
found if you're going to be consistent, you have to schedule it
rather than just hoping it happens. If you can get to bed
early enough, I suggest you schedule your quiet time for the first
thing in the morning. For me, it's kind of like
tithing. If you prioritize tithing, then it's the first line
item in your monthly budget and everything else comes after
it. In the same way, you make sure the most important
activitiy of your day is done first so you make sure it
happens.
So the first step in devoting a specific time is schedule it,
and if you decide to do it first thing in the morning, then the
next step is to plan your evening so that you get to bed early
enough so you get a good night's rest and still get up early enough
for a quiet time.
Now let's talk about the 3 parts to a quiet time. The
first part, prayer, is actually 2 parts. I suggest you pray
when you begin your quiet time as well as when you end your quiet
time. You're kind of sandwiching your bible reading and
journaling with prayer.
We could multiple episodes just talking about prayer but I'll
just briefly suggest here that you be real with God. Be
honest with Him about where you are and what you're thinking and
feeling at that time. I've heard a couple acronyms you might
find useful. One is the word WAR, W-A-R, where you first
worship God, then ask him for forgiveness, then make
requests. Another acronym is ACTS, like the books of ACTS,
A-C-T-S. The A is for adoration or worship, the C is for
confesion, the T is for thanksgiving, and the S is for supplication
which is a fancy word for making requests. And of course you
can use what we call the Lord's prayer as a guide for your prayer
as well.
So the second part is to read the Bible. I suggest you
read one chapter. You may have a Bible reading plan,
for example a schedule for reading the Bible in a year. I
would suggest your quiet time should be different and separate from
your Bible reading plan. One suggestion for what chapter is
to "read for the need" and use a topical bible search on a topic
yo'ure dealing with like https://www.openbible.info/topics/,
or just Google "Bible verse for blank". If you read a chapter and
don't feel God is speaking to you, I suggest you pick another
chapter or read the next chatpter.
The third part is the journaling. One decision is
whether to go old school and paper and pen or digital. I use
the Evernote app to journaling and just about everything else but
whatever works for you.
The technique I've learned from the REalMen300 and applied is
the SPACE method.
The S stands for SIN, what sin is God telling you that you
need to confess.
The P is Promise, what promise is God giving you.
A is for attitud or application. what change in you
attitude is God asking you to make or how do feel God is asking you
to apply the reading to your life.
THe C is command. WHat is God commanding you to do?
The E is for Example What example is being offered for
you to follow. Of course Jesus or Yeshua is our perfect
example. but there ar emany men and women in the Bible that we can
look to as both positive and negative examples, or perhaps the
reading makes you think of someone in your life that God wants to
use as an example for you.
I use the Bible Gateway app for reading which makes it very
easy to copy and paste into Evernote the specfiic verse that is
jumping out at me for each of the letters in SPACE.
So those are the highlights of what I've learned so far.
The last thing I would add is the importance of finding a way
to be accountable for doing this. I'm in an accountability
group with RealMen300 where we report out to our group how many
days in the previous week we read the Bible and journaled.
This can be very motivating.
E
Encouragement
Prayer using Amen
Awake
Mid-day
Evening
Night
L
Laughter
"A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a crushed
spirit dries up the bones." - Proverbs 17:22
A
For whom the Lord loves He
chastens, And scourges every son whom He receives.” If you endure
chastening, God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there
whom a father does not chasten? But if you are without chastening,
of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate and
not sons. Now no chastening seems to be joyful for the present, but
painful; nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of
righteousness to those who have been trained by it.
Hebrews 12:6-8,11 - NKJV
Listen to ReMan podcast by Joe Bailey, about Sonship
H
See Proverbs for business by Steve Marr
Week 25 Day 2