HOW TO HAVE A GOOD QUIET TIME WITH GOD: Requirements of a quiet time
Time of day
Everyone has scheduling conflicts that make it a challenge to find a regular quiet time that works. But you must find a consistent time for daily devotions and make it a regular appointment. Put it in your calendar on your phone, write it in your planner or set alarms, whatever method that works best for you when you want to meet up with a very important appointment.
If you make a commitment to work on a regular quiet time every day but don’t carry it out consistently, other things will crowd it out. You’ll find yourself always thinking "it’s not going to work today but I'm certainly going to meet up tomorrow". Before too long it will become a good intention that never materialized.
You also want to consider what is the best time of day for your quiet time. While there isn’t any reason why you can’t have devotions in the evening when the house is quiet, there are a couple of good reasons to consider doing it in the morning;
It’s proactive: Spending time with God in the morning starts your day off right. You can pray over the other appointments and events you have coming up and charge into your day spiritually empowered.
we tend to have more control over our time in the morning: Though you might need to get up a little earlier to get your morning quiet time in, early morning really makes it your time. In the evening, the chances are greater of having other things come up. It’s also harder to make it happen on days when you get home physically or emotionally exhausted.
The Psalmist said in Psalms 5:3
"You hear my voice in the morning
At sunrise I offer my prayer and wait on you"
Place?
You need to find a good location where you’ll be able to focus with as little distraction as possible. Maybe a particular room in your house, your favorite chair. It doesn’t really matter as long as it’s not a place where you’re going to be so comfortable that you end up falling asleep or getting distracted by other things.
Some persons might want to consider creating a space that gets them into a devotional mood. Maybe that could include music or nature. If nature helps you connect with God, then go for it. The key is to pick and create an ideal space for your quiet times. It does not require any much design just anywhere you can be alone and away from distractions.
Structure or Pattern
You don’t need more than 30–60 minutes for a really powerful quiet time. You may wish to spend more or less. Having an idea of how you’re going to structure that time is what makes all the difference. If you sit down in the morning and randomly start reading a passage in your Bible, that’s not likely to have the kind of impact that having a structured quiet time will.
You don’t need to be locked into the same system forever. Maybe you commit to reading through the epistles for a couple of months. Later you might want to do some devotional reading or do some bible journaling. There are a lot of ways you can structure your time. You just want to make sure that you don’t use your quiet time to figure out what that structure will be.
There's need also to identify how much time you want to spend in prayer. 20-30% of your total quiet time should be spent in prayer. For example, if you have set aside an hour in the morning for devotions, plan to spend 15–20 minutes of that in prayer. Setting that framework ahead of time will help ensure that you give yourself ample time for this important discipline.
On a final note! Just keep in mind that regular devotions require flexibility. Sometimes you can’t have your devotion at your typical time or in your typical space. You must be able to adapt your quiet time to your circumstances and press on.
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