Thursday, March 6, 2014

Quiet Time with God, by 'Appointment' Only

“And in the morning, a long time before daylight, he got up and went out to a quiet place where he could be alone, and gave himself up to prayer” (Mark 1:35). How well Jesus must have known “Be quiet and know that I am God” (Ps 46:10).

From the time I was a teenager, I began having a daily quiet time. It’s a very ‘natural’ part of my life. But I know that many Christians have no deliberate quiet time. I find it interesting that from the beginning of His relationship with His created beings, God models 'face-time.' The Genesis narrative implies that God visited Adam and Eve every day at an appointed time: the cool of the day; we call it dusk.

Over the years, I've seen believers ramp up their 'God' time when they are hurting! But do we have to be in pain to want time with God? Shouldn't it be a regular part of our day? Amos asks, How can two walk together unless they have an appointment? (Amos 3:3)? What does your appointment book look like?

4 comments:

  1. Love this song...goes with your post today. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vu2E2FUcIiE



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  2. thank you Patti for sharing this with us all. greg

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  3. Good morning Greg,
    Good reminders. It has been said with regards to relationships, without quantity time, there is no quality time. It is abusive to treat God as the cosmic bellhop and only want to relate to Him when we are in the deep weeds. If we treated any other human relationship that way, we would be sent packing.
    With quantity time, we get to know God more completely, and thus can know about His character, what He wants, and what is good for us. It is in all of those finer nuances of understanding that we can distinguish between the voice of God for me, and the voices of something or someone else (world, flesh, devil). And we are more likely to hear the Spirit on the front end (do this...) than on the back end (your should have done this...).
    Thanks again!
    Godspeed!
    Larry Q

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  4. Yes, indeed. And it begs the question why people who say they love God or who say they want to hear God spend so little 'quality' time with Him. If it takes 'time' for us to get to know our wives, and close friends, how much more to get to know God, who is so "other" from us!?

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