But everything should be done in a fitting and orderly way.
1 Corinthians 14:40 NIVUK
My brother-in-law is a trained architect. As is his father. Architecture is a very honourable profession. An architect may have grandiose and beautiful designs - and, trust me, my brother-in-law has had plenty of them. But every building needs two things: a strong foundation and a strong structure. They might not be pretty. You won't find too many pictures of steel girders or wooden beams or deep-dug foundations on social media. But they are essential. If you don't have them, it doesn't matter how pretty your building is, it will collapse.
It's exactly the same with our time with God. It might not seem like the nicest thing to do, but we need a structure. We need a framework. We need a plan.
In fact, every act of worship should have an element of planning about it. God is not against planning. On Mount Sinai He gave Moses the plans for the Tabernacle - the Tent of Meeting (Exodus 26). The entire book of Leviticus contains extraordinarily specific instructions on how worship should be conducted and who should lead it. After the Temple was destroyed and rebuilt many years later, God gave the same level of prescriptive instructions to Ezekiel (Ezekiel 40-44). And one detail that is often overlooked is how Paul told the Corinthians, whose worship was enthusiastic but chaotic, that they should impose some form of order (1 Corinthians 14:26-40). And his reasoning for doing so was simple:
For God is not a God of disorder but of peace – as in all the congregations of the Lord’s people.
1 Corinthians 14:33 NIVUK
In other words, church worship should reflect God's character: it should be organised and in order because God is a God of order and peace.
Of course, there is such a thing as too much order. As we saw earlier:
The Lord says: ‘These people come near to me with their mouth and honour me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship of me is based on merely human rules they have been taught.
Isaiah 29:13 NIVUK
There is a clear danger in doing something only one way. When tradition becomes 'muscle-memory', a habit, something we do robotically without any thought of why, then something has to change.
But at the same time, God is absolutely not against planning. He just wants to be in control of the plan:
Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.
Proverbs 3:5-6 NIVUK
Commit to the Lord whatever you do, and he will establish your plans.
Proverbs 16:3 NIVUK
In their hearts humans plan their course, but the Lord establishes their steps.
Proverbs 16:9 NIVUK
Many are the plans in a person’s heart, but it is the Lord’s purpose that prevails.
Proverbs 19:21 NIVUK
In fact, I would even go as far as to say that the effort we put into organising our quiet time speaks volumes about our attitude towards God. We saw in Malachi that God hates sacrifices that cost us nothing - in fact, He'd rather we didn't make then at all (Malachi 1:8-10).
This is something David already knew (2 Samuel 24:18-24).
Whenever we want to meet with human family members, friends, colleagues and acquaintances, we put effort into it. We set a date, a time, a place, we discuss what we're going to do, what and where we're going to eat, even, for some of us, what we're going to wear.
But how much care and attention do we put into our meetings with God?
That question has challenged me on several occasions. Firstly, when I was reshaping my quiet time to 'feed myself' as a teenager.
Secondly, when I was serving as a missionary in Romania.
Thirdly, when I found myself alone in a London hotel on business trips and realised that a strong quiet time would help me cope with the stress of meeting with senior bosses every day.
Fourthly, when lockdown hit and, like everyone else, I was facing a serious test to my own resilience.
To be completely honest, I should have thought about it a lot more often.
Making sure that our quiet time allows us to hear from God in our situation is really important. After all, we call ourselves Christians - followers of Christ. But how can we follow someone if we don't see them or hear them?
Before I provide you with some advice regarding this, let me say one thing: I do not believe in a 'one size fits all' quiet time. I am not about to lay down rules or standards. There have been times in my life, particularly when my daughter was very young, when having a daily quiet time at a fixed time of day was a challenge. There were times when I had to break it up into several short quiet times throughout the day, or even simply grabbed time when I could.
Let me give you a good example. Some people are like me: brought up on three square meals a day. So I eat breakfast, lunch and dinner. No snacks in between. Other people are grazers. Like cows and sheep, they just constantly eat small amounts throughout the day.
We can approach our quiet time like that. We can structure it to suit our schedule and needs. The most important thing is to have a quiet time - to spend time reading His Word, praying and listening for His voice. The hows and wherefores are less important.
There are a few pieces of advice I can give, from my own experience, that can help.
Firstly, don't feel guilty if you find that your quiet time is different from other people's or changes from time to time. I went from 10-15 minutes most mornings to an hour and a half, to time whenever I could, to now, around thirty minutes in the morning. Routines change. Things happen. God is a God of grace. He knows your heart.
Secondly, always ask yourself 'Why?' 'Why am I doing this?' 'What do I want to get out of it?' You will have a purpose each time you meet with God. You will want to do something or to gain something.
That's not wrong. Provided it isn't for purely selfish reasons (James 4:1-3).
My purpose, when I restructured my quiet time as a teenager, was to learn more out of the Bible and to study it more.
When I was a missionary, it was so I could be fed so I could feed others.
When I was on business trips, it was so I could prepare myself for the day ahead.
During Lockdown, it was my haven, comfort and shelter. I had my quiet times to manage my mental health and receive peace.
Maybe you're still a little taken aback by this approach. Let me allay your fears. Take a look at Leviticus 1-3. These were worship offerings. The worshipper was going to the Tent of Meeting to do something - to worship God.
Or Leviticus 4-7. These were offerings made because the worshipper had sinned and was seeking forgiveness.
Or the festivals in Leviticus 23. Each of these had a meaning or purpose: to rest and honour God; to remember their deliverance from slavery; to thank Him for harvests; to remember His forgiveness; to remember their forty-year journey to the Promised Land.
People came before the Lord with a purpose. The Temple wasn't a place to just 'hang out'. People went there to participate in worship, to listen to teaching, to offer sacrifices.
We have to remember that all these worship regulations and festivals didn't come out of fresh air. No, they were God-ordained.
So God is not at all opposed to us having a reason to come before Him. In fact, it's perfectly normal.
Of course, we cannot be so distracted by the blessings that we take our eyes off the One who is doing the blessing. We would not like it at all if someone treated us like that. But we will have a reason for coming before God in our quiet time. It's important that we recognise it and seek to set our quiet time up so that our reason is satisfied.
The next thing we need to ask is 'What?': 'What is our focus?'
I believe the focus of any quiet time should be the Bible: our direct reading, studying, meditating on and memorising the Word of God. Not listening to worship songs. Not reading devotionals or other Christian books. Not even prayer or intercession. First, foremost and above all, it must be the Bible.
My reasoning is simple. We come to our quiet times to hear from God. There are lots of ways to hear from God. But we need to know that it is God we've heard from and not someone else. His greatest self-expression is His Word.
All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.
2 Timothy 3:16-17 NIVUK
All the guidance and wisdom we need from God is found primarily in His Word:
How can a young person stay on the path of purity? By living according to your word.
Psalms 119:9 NIVUK
I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you.
Psalms 119:11 NIVUK
Your word is a lamp for my feet, a light on my path.
Psalms 119:105 NIVUK
Yes, Jesus is important. Of course He is. But He is the Word of God in human form:
The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.
John 1:14 NIVUK
What we need to know here is that the Greek word translated as 'the Word' is 'logos', meaning not just 'speech', but also the mind, the thought process, God's plan for the universe.
Jesus embodied it all. And every part of it is contained in the Bible.
Don't misunderstand me. I'm not saying we should worship the Bible. That would be idolatry. I'm saying that if we want to hear from God then the best means to do so is through His Word, the Bible.
What this means for us is that we should put ourselves in the best possible state to hear God speak through His Word.
So how do we do that?
We consider what happens before we start our quiet time. What are we coming from? For some it might be sleep, for others, a shower or bath, for others, taking care of small children, for others, a busy time at work. We need to ask what we are doing before we start our quiet time.
What we do then is plan something - some form of spiritual activity - that will switch our focus and attention, and calm and quieten us down so that we we are most receptive to God's voice. That could be a devotional or a chapter of a book or a song or a video. It could even be a need to vent and pray passionately about our needs and the needs of our community, as we saw earlier. The purpose of this activity is purely to make us ready to hear God speak.
If we think of our time with God as being a bit like mountain climbing, this is the part when we ascend the mountain. So as we ascend it, we should deal with any issues that could prevent us from hearing the voice of God in His Word, or, indeed, could hinder our prayers:
Who may ascend the mountain of the Lord? Who may stand in his holy place? The one who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not trust in an idol or swear by a false god.
Psalms 24:3-4 NIVUK
Come and hear, all you who fear God; let me tell you what he has done for me. I cried out to him with my mouth; his praise was on my tongue. If I had cherished sin in my heart, the Lord would not have listened; but God has surely listened and has heard my prayer. Praise be to God, who has not rejected my prayer or withheld his love from me!
Psalms 66:16-20 NIVUK
Of course, this includes unforgiveness:
And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.
Matthew 6:12 NIVUK
And it also includes fractured relationships:
‘Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to them; then come and offer your gift.
Matthew 5:23-24 NIVUK
All these are tough - really tough - but absolutely necessary if we are to have a time with God unhindered and unaffected by sin: either our sin or the sin of others.
Then we come to the top of the mountain, where we meet with the Lord through His Word, read and studied directly, and not through a proxy or a filter. The next chapter will explore ways of doing this.
And then the time comes to descend the mountain; to return back to everyday life. Here we remember what we are going back towards and shape our thoughts and prayers accordingly. This is where we focus on applying what we have learned, bringing our day before the Lord and thanking Him for what we have learned.
Interestingly, the best services and events I have been to have followed this structure. They have been planned out with a clear purpose and focus. They have been focused on the message the preacher is about to bring and how he will apply Scripture to every day life. The worship songs have all been chosen with this in mind. Many of them have organised worship so that it takes people from whatever state they are in at the start of the service to the state they need to be in to hear God speak: calm, quiet and eager to listen:
My heart is not proud, Lord, my eyes are not haughty; I do not concern myself with great matters or things too wonderful for me. But I have calmed and quietened myself, I am like a weaned child with its mother; like a weaned child I am content.
Psalms 131:1-2 NIVUK
And then the songs after the sermon have been specifically chosen to act as a means for listeners to voice their response to the Word as it was preached.
This is not at all manipulative. It's absolutely the right thing to do. It's God honouring and focused on giving people the opportunity to grow.
And that's why it's absolutely the right thing to do for our quiet times too.
Maybe we're attracted to the idea of having an unstructured quiet time, of 'moving with the Spirit', 'hanging out with the Lord'.
But what happens when you do?
Don't you 'receive a word' but can't tell if it's from the Lord or your own opinion?
Aren't you like the elderly Christian who boasted that he got up at five o'clock every morning to spend time with the Lord, but his relatives constantly caught him snoring in the armchair?
Don't you often get distracted, bored and have a mind that wanders so far and so often that you should really get it a backpack and walking sticks?
Structure is the answer. Not ritual. Not habit. Structure. A framework. If you get stuck in the rut and it seems to be robotic, change it up a little. You're free to do that.
But the main thing is that you bring yourself into a quiet and calm awareness of the Presence of God and hear Him speak. Nothing matters more. Everything else is secondary.
So when was the last time you heard God speak through His Word?
Questions:
How do you prepare to receive to hear God speak? Do you find it easy or difficult?
What structure have you set up to ensure that you are concentrated, quiet and get the most from your quiet time?
How do you transition from your time with God to normal, everyday life?
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