Okay girls, so I am going to make this enormous confession! I haven't had a quiet time in a long time. And I thought it would be a good idea to share with you guys the story of how this came to be.
Essentially, a few months ago I think it was, I realized that the Bible said nothing about having a "daily quiet time." I wondered why it was so demanded in the church of God hasn't ever actually made a decree about it?? It troubled me that I had written articles that insisted you girls had to have a quiet time every day. And I apologize for that advance only in this -- it is not something that the Bible says we must do. It is not a commandment.
Anyway, I suddenly decided that I wasn't going to be "tight" about it. I would go to God when I wanted to! When I felt the Spirit calling, or I just felt like spending some time with the Lord, I'd go do it. I'd figure it would happen from a few times a day to every other day at the least! So this is what I did.
Well let me tell you. My set-apart times of prayer decreased. They went from every day to every other day. Then a couple times a week. Then a few times a month. Then they became, simply, a rare treat. And the sad thing is, this was a part of something that pulled me away from God. I have still lived for Him in that I generally follow that He has laid out for us, but, have I been living a sold-out life? Have I been focusing on hourly dedication to Him? No.
He has become farther removed from my mind, and recently I actually started to develop a secular mindset!!! Ahhh! I know, right?? Not an atheistic, particularly worldly mindset, but a more self-absorbed one. Lately I've been thinking in terms of what talents and abilities I want to cultivate, my dreams, what I want to do with my life, what difference I want to make, finding out what kind of a person I am in terms of personality and likes and dislikes, what goals I'd like to set...have you noticed something?? There's a lot of "I's" in this sequence!! What happened to "I WANT GOD!" and that's all?
I think that part of this has rooted from my lack of self-discipline to set aside time for God each day. Is it a Bible decree? No. Is not spending specific, set-apart time with God in prayer and reading Scriptures daily a sin? NO! But to put it plainly, it's just a smart idea, and using plain logic, it's something that all Christians should do. It just makes sense!
I was thinking today about desire to spend time with God. What if we don't want to spend time with God, but then do, as a chore? Is that wrong? I could be wrong, but what I think the answer is, is something like this: If you don't want to spend time with God, then you haven't been spending enough valuable (quality, not quantity) time with Him in the first place to recognize the rewards of it! I stumbled across this quote the other day and it hit me pretty hard:
"The moment you don't feel like praying, get on your knees. And the moment you don't feel like reading your Bible, you'd better get that Book open." -Lori Wick
I need to get back to daily time with God. Even if it's just 10 minutes. It doesn't matter how much time--it just has to be a reasonable (ie, more than 30 seconds ;)) amount that is valuable, spent worshiping in the Presence and learning from Him!!! It will affect our day-to-day life, and therefore, our life as a whole! So I'm going to go back to the self-discipline of reading the Bible and praying to Jesus every day. Even if I don't feel like it. Because eventually, it will become a joy.
Well, there you have it. My confession. This isn't some fancy article, obviously, where I focused on my writing skills -- it's just me chatting informally with you and sharing what's been going on in my life. So, what are your thoughts on this subject? Am I wrong? Should we only go to God when our hearts feel like it? And where are you? Let's pray for each other. :)
Ariel
I have to confess that I am not self-disciplined either! The thing is, God didn't command us to give us some of our time, He commanded us to give Him all of it! God bought (and brought) us into His prescence by the price of His blood, and He tells us that in His prescence is the fulness of joy and pleasures forevermore. I can't think of any reason why we shouldn't spend quiet time with God everyday. God says people can't live by bread alone but by every Word that comes out of His mouth. We won't be able to survive very long without food, how much more can we survive without our Soul Food? I remember Leslie Ludy said something along the lines of, "Our emotions can lead us spiritually, but first, they must be fully yielded to God." For many of us, myself included, our feelings are far from being completely surrendered to Christ. And when they're not surrendered, the Bible says that the heart is deceitful above all things! Also, Jesus says that His Word is our spiritual sword - it's the only item on the Ephesians 6 armour that is a weapon. Everyday we walk out to a spiritual war, and as a pastor once said, "I can't imagine that anyone would enter a war zone without their sword." I think we need to shift from doing the bare minimum "requirement" to going all out to honour and worship our King :)
ReplyDeleteI'm off to spend quiet time with God! ;)
Love,
Annie
Oops, spelling error. I meant "presence", not "prescence" :)
ReplyDelete