What is a Quiet Time?

Let’s start with a little philosophy.  “Church” on Sunday is not the time that we should be “fed” by the teacher.  Church is a time when we should be able to share from what we have learned through the previous week.  True learning about the Bible does not come in a single session on Sunday.  It comes from daily study in the Bible during the week.

Think about it like this.  Suppose you were raising birds.  During the week you put a box of food in their cage for them to eat.  But you don’t open it, that is their job to get to the food.  On Sunday, you not only open the food, you put neat stuff with the food to make it look and smell good.  Perhaps you dice up strawberries, cherries, and other fruit and make a cocktail out of it.  How long do you think your birds will live?  You know that in order to raise birds, babies have to be fed by hand several times each day.  The adult birds have to have food which they can get to and occasional treats to help them.  The reward that you have is on a given day you are able to go out and play with the birds.  That is what Sunday is about.  God wants us to eat his food during the week.  On Sunday we worship Him by praising Him for what we have learned.  It is time to get close to God as a bird will land on your shoulder and enjoy your presence.  Only we have one step better than the bird because we can talk with God and communicate with Him.

“Give attention to reading” (1 Tim. 4:13). This is one of the most neglected areas in the minister’s life. The devil sees to this! He knows that if he can distract or divert us from this daily tryst with our Lord, the consequences will be defeat, despair, and disaster.

After years of Christian experience, the saintly George Müller confessed: “I saw more clearly than ever that the first great and primary business to which I ought to attend every day was to have my soul happy in the Lord. The first thing to be concerned about was not how much I might serve the Lord, …but how I might get my soul into a happy state, and how my inner [life] might be nourished.”⁴ Mr. Müller came to see that his business, day by day, was to meditate upon the Word of God, searching as it were, into every verse for the sake of obtaining food for his soul. He knew what the Lord Jesus meant when He declared, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God” (Matt. 4:4).^[1]

 

What should we do during a Quiet time?  It’s simple:

·         Pray that God will open your eyes to what you are reading, after all, it is a spiritual book.

·         Pray for others as God puts them on your heart, keep a list.

·         Read the scriptures according to a plan.  This broadens your understanding of the Bible.

·         Write down a few sentences that describe what you have read.  This imprints the learning on your mind.

·         Thank God for the reading and pray back the concept that He has shown you.

·         Put what you read into practice if you are able during that day.

The eminent scientist and enviable Christian, Dr. George Washington Carver, holding a peanut in his hand, asked, “Mr. Creator, what’s in that peanut?” The Creator replied, “You’ve got brains, You go and find out.” Carver found the answers, and he used them to benefit humankind. And so can we, when our quiet times with God lead to creativity and deeper commitment. (See Matt. 21:22.)^[2]

Let’s practice what we have learned.

First we are going to pray…

For Guidance, and for others…

Second, I will pretend that our predetermined passage is Matthew 9:1-17.  Let’s read it.

Third, Write down what we have learned…

Fourth, let’s pray back to God what He has shown us in this passage.  As an example.  In the passage above, Verses 12-13 are particularly meaningful.  Suppose you were to pray these back to God, “Father, I know that the healthy do not need a physician.  I suffer from sin sickness, it reaches into every area of my life.  Forgive me for these sins.  Father, give me the heart and passion to follow You in every area of my life.  Thank you that even though I am a sinner, I am able to follow You.  When I stumble and fall, I will remember that You called me as a sinner and I will get up, confess it, and passionately follow You again.”  You see, the gist of the verse is that sinners follow the great physician who heals the wounds of our lives.  When we follow His treatment plan, we are on the road to spiritual health.

Fifth, how are we going to put this into practice today?

Earlier, I said that we should be able to share on Sunday from what we have learned during the week.  What we learn during the week we give out on Sunday.  Participants in church are not there to “get” they are there to “give” and there to worship God for what He “did” in the previous week. 

This concept will be put in practice in our “church” in a simple way.  We will have a time when we will share what God has shown us during the week.  Some churches called this a Testimony time.  It’s a good term.  We will testify as to what God has shown us.

In closing, select a Bible reading plan which you are comfortable with.  I found one guide on the Internet that offers several plans that enable you to read through the Bible in a year (http://www.ewordtoday.com/year/).  This is only one example of many tools available.  In our house we will be generating a Bible reading plan from Libronix software which will be custom for each person in our family.

Thank’s for reading through this.  Father inspire Your people to follow You.

In Him,

Joe Turner.

 

⁴ George Müller, Soul Nourishment First (Bristol, England: Müller Homes for Children, n.d.), 1.

Olford, S. F., & Olford, D. L. (1998). Anointed Expository Preaching (21). Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman Publishers.

Jones, G. C. (1986). 1000 illustrations for preaching and teaching (293). Nashville, TN: Broadman Press.