Quiet Time: Meeting With God

But if from there you seek the Lord your God, you will find him if you look for him with all your heart and with all your soul.

Deuteronomy 4:29

The alarm didn’t go off. The kids rolled out of bed in a cranky mood. The toaster burned breakfast. Someone forgot to plug in the iron. The neighbor’s dog chewed up the newspaper again. It’s raining. It’s your day to carpool, and the car engine won’t start.

When the Bible teacher says, “and the most important part of the day is a quiet time,” it sounds good, real good. But as the momentary and immediate problems of everyday life set in, making the transition is no easy task. Why is a quiet time so important? What is supposed to happen there? And how does one pull it off?

The quiet time often becomes a hollow convention of religious structure, instead of a holy meeting with the personal Christ. We read a verse or two of Bible, pray a little prayer and—oops! It’s 7:30. Amen, and off to work again. That’s one more item checked off the daily to-do list, another installment payment on a spiritual insurance policy.

Our quiet times often become yet another perfunctory duty of the Christian life, another activity to verify our Christianity to ourselves. When this happens, the quiet time has become secularized. We cannot apply worldly methods to spiritual needs.

We are too busy. The suffocating pace of secular society subtly strangles our personal devotions. We must come apart to meet with the Lord. But, it seems we can barely function without the dull drone of a radio or a television in the background.

Some of us have forgotten why we take time, and with Whom we spend it. Instead of thinking of devotions in terms of what we want from God, perhaps some of us need to re-evaluate. Let us go and meet with God and humbly quiet ourselves before the throne of His grace. Leave the religious party horns and hats to others.

A great tragedy of our era is that only ten percent of Americans read their Bibles daily, according to a 1986 Gallup poll. A far greater tragedy is that many of us who do read them do so out of a sense of duty and without much joy. Yet the Word is everything to the life of a Christian.

There is an order to life, a continuity, a progression. It is from faith to obedience, not from obedience to faith. Paul’s mission was to call people “to the obedience that comes from faith” (Romans 1:5). And how do we acquire the bedrock of faith? We meet with God. “Faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ” (Romans 10:17). Do you meet with and listen to God?

There is such a thing as a dry quiet time. When we walk upon deserts of disobedience, our thirst for God goes unmet. When we are caught up in a rat race, we must live out of the reserves. Yet our loving Father entreats us to come, no matter how far we have strayed. “But if from there you seek the Lord your God, you will find him if you look for him with all your heart and with all your soul” (Deuteronomy 4:29).

Are you depending upon the religious structure of your life instead of your personal relationship with Him? Go and meet with God. You will find Him “if you look for him with all your heart and with all your soul.”

Have you devoted yourself to looking for Him with all your heart and all your soul? Or are your quiet times like the hot dry breath of a desert wind? Go and meet with God. Do the first thing first. His breath is cool and refreshing. It is the Holy Spirit who will revive you.

I SURRENDER

Holy Father, I humble myself before You. I have trivialized the time I spend with You. The plain truth is that I have made it into a duty and an obligation. And I have let myself become very busy. Lord, I surrender my time to You. I ask You to grant me the grace to put first things first. I want to meet with You. I want You to be Lord. I want to re-Christianize my personal devotions. Let the breath of Your Spirit revive my personal relationship with You in quiet times. Amen.