originally published 10/13/19
O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you: my soul thirsts for you … (Psalm 63:1)
I’m so thankful for the Lord’s gracious patience with us. He is so patient to teach us even when it takes years for us to really take in a lesson that should be quite obvious. I am experiencing a new season in my quiet times with the Lord that has been so refreshing and encouraging. To be honest, I am ashamed that it has taken me this long to learn and feel this lesson in my bones. But it is the truth of my story that I didn’t learn this easily.
For too long my quiet times have been an unhealthy experience of shame and guilt. I would too often bring a stress-filled expectation of gaining some great insight in my quiet times, as if the purpose of sitting quietly at the Lord’s feet were mostly an intellectual exercise. To be fair, that hasn’t been my only motivation in my quiet times, but it has been there sufficiently to add unneeded and unhelpful stress.
Now, I am finally experiencing my quiet times mostly as a time to quietly sit with the Lord, pray and read. These times aren’t primarily about study … there is other time for study. These times are about communion. They are times for me to slowly read His Word (I don’t rush through a lot, rather I slowly take in a little). I try to find something in the text to pray about. The prayer often seems to take the form of “protect me from that behavior or attitude I see being taught against in this text” or “help me to grow in that behavior or attitude, I can see that I am falling short of that.”
Rather than quickly go to behavior modification tools that I could employ, I choose to give God time to begin the work in those areas. I can then follow His lead as I see what He is doing. As I spend this kind of unrushed, unstressed time sitting with my Lord in the morning, I have found that the rest of the day flows more smoothly and powerfully in His Spirit and the fruit of the Spirit.
I share my story here because maybe some of you are like I have been for so much of my life, and you find that your quiet times are lacking something. Perhaps like me, you place too much stress on yourself to make your quiet time “insightful.” Perhaps you experience a lack through some other dynamic: maybe you most often come before Him carrying your guilt, and so you don’t feel that He would welcome you into His presence; maybe the pressure you feel to cover so much ground in your Bible reading leaves you little time to meditate and prayerfully consider what He is teaching you; there could be so many other things that inhibit your ability to sit quietly with your Lord.
I would urge you to keep asking Him to teach you to enjoy sitting in His presence. That is a God-honoring prayer that He will undoubtedly answer positively for each of us. He is patience with you and me, and as we prayerfully seek such enjoyment of Him, He will surely make each of us His glad worshipers. May we each seek Him wholeheartedly.