The dying art of the quiet time

By Holly Price

1. We are rebels

Time out with God is a rebellious act. It is deeply counter-cultural to stop, to let God quieten our hearts, and to listen in to him singing loudly over us (Zephaniah 3:17). Jesus took flak for it even from his followers (Mark 1:35-37). Our own minds are impatient to do what’s urgent and discover what’s new. Our world says it’s all about me.

But God welcomes us to sit beside him because he longs to set us free. We are part of a movement, a community that’s rooted in quality time with God. We resist our culture’s half-baked gospels by listening to his words, which bring never-ending life (John 6:68-69).

Recent events have primed us for this rebellion. We understand the value of connection and the ache of loneliness. We are prepared to deconstruct anything that sets itself up against relationship with God (2 Corinthians 10:5). We can develop a rhythm of spending time with God not because we’ve been told to or we feel we should, but because we’re free to.

Enjoy the freedom to experiment with your time out with God. What times, places or prompts help you connect with him best? What helps remind you that God's love doesn't need to be earned, just received?

2. We want risk

We like stability, but we’re also longing to change the world around us. God is ready to take us on adventures. He’s ready to weave our lives into his epic story.

It’s easy to let our personal narrative take centre stage, but counter-intuitively this shrinks our world and grows our fears. Developing a habit of meeting with God reminds us whose we really are, so we don’t have to spend the rest of the day looking for ourselves. Secure in his love, we can look up and out to those we might get alongside, to the causes God wants us to champion, to heaven and its influence on earth.

What looks like a regular day might be full of spiritual plot twists: a reaction, a chance meeting, even a heart change. Time out with God rewires our thinking, preparing us to go out and risk walking God’s way in our everyday life (Romans 12:1-2). It’s a journey – we don’t need to solve everything today, just to take one more step with him.

You could try jotting down what you think God is asking you to do, and keeping it in your pocket or on your phone. Keep the conversation live, chatting with him about it as you go.

3. We seek revelation

Our view of the world is so often dictated by the headlines, the deadlines and the dilemmas of each day. The noise around us begins as soon as we wake up and competes for our attention all day long. Are we just reacting? What truths or lies do our lives point to?

Pausing to read the Bible, to talk with Jesus and to listen to him isn’t about stepping out of our everday, it’s about looking at life from his viewpoint. Jesus knows everything. Everything was created to point to him. What does God want to show us about himself today?

We can allow God’s Word to reframe our lives. You might use a Bible reading plan, a study guide or simply read a section at a time. You could listen to the Bible being read or taught, annotate it using an app or printout, summarise it or look at a paraphrase, memorise and meditate on one verse, or sing along to it. You could do ten minutes a day, a chunkier slot a couple of times a week, or whatever helps you go deep with God. I sometimes find the in-between time, when I’m not sure what to read next, paralyses me. But it’s more about quality time with God than quantity of Bible, more about starting somewhere than finding a perfect system.

Making the Bible part of our regular time with Jesus recentres our hearts on him. Like the psalmist, we can ‘dance to the tune of [God’s] revelation’ as we go about our day (Psalm 119:69-70 MSG).

4. We need rest

We’re just really tired. Anyone else feel like this is the one constant that never budges with every passing ‘new normal’? It’s just our reality.

And yet, Jesus’ reality impacts ours. Hebrews 10:11-12 contrasts weary priests with Jesus, ‘Day after day every priest stands and performs his religious duties; again and again he offers the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But when this priest had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God’ (NIV, emphasis added).

Jesus is sitting down and he’s inviting us to ‘sit down on the inside’ with him all day. Sometimes tiredness is my excuse for skipping time with God, but actually it’s a reason to keep coming to him. He knows what we are carrying and how it’s wearing us down, and as we bring all of that to him he offers us rest and food at a soul level (Matthew 11:28-30, Matthew 4:4).

Is there a time of the day when you can decompress with God? I do this whilst walking at 3pm, as I either fall asleep or stew on worries if I pray in bed, but play around with the timing. Relax for a moment with God, take a deep breath and look at the highs and lows of the day with him, give him anything that’s weighing on you and pray you’ll trust him for the next 24 hours too. The booklet Today is the best resource I've found for developing this rhythm.

5. We are risen

We’re part of something so much bigger than ourselves. We are living out God’s dream of making his home in his people, and welcoming others into our lives to meet him.

Easter is right around the corner, but whenever we take time out with God, we are enjoying the new life that Jesus went to his death for. We are risen with Jesus, sitting down at the right hand of God (Colossians 3:1) – like, now!

As we spend time with God, we remember to say goodbye to our old life and yes to who we are in Jesus. We’re unpacking the gift of a relationship with our Father, of an eternal hope that starts now. We are experiencing forgiveness, freedom and transformation day by day.

This identity shift is radical, but we need to embody it: ‘You were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light’ (Ephesians 5:8-10). You could try linking a verse to something you do routinely at work, home or in your neighbourhood, to remind you that you can live out his life in your everyday.

Whatever time of day, whatever the volume, whatever the venue, regular time out with God makes us like Jesus: alive, outward-looking and in love with our Father.