I hate the phrase "quiet time" as a description of a devotional/alone time with God. You never hear rigorous theologians use the phrase. You know why, too, right? It's girlie. It sounds like something you do in the middle of the day on a mat in a room with kindergartners. It could also be called "shut up and listen time," which is what it is, and guys would like that better, but I can't see it catching on.
The kindergarten picture kinda fits, too. You got a bunch of hyperactive rug rats, all juiced on juicy-juice and pop tarts, and their little attention spans are flying every which way and latching onto everything in sight, and there comes a point where you have to shut them down, reboot, reset and let their dinky engines cool. Yeah, that's me. "Be still, and know that I am God." Yup, quiet time is what it is.
It's not study and it's not work and it's not preparation and it's not ministry. You know how married people sometimes say, "we're just missing" to describe how they feel they're not connecting with each other right now, even though nothing's wrong and they're doing everything they're supposed to? How they're "just not communicating?" And how the answer is to make time to look each other in the eye and listen and not be in a hurry about it? And when you do it regularly you feel so much more connected? Same with God.
The way to red
Have you noticed when you spend lengthy time with people, from family to just acquaintances, say several hours or even days, the end of your time together is very different from the beginning? It starts out a bit stiff, and then you go thru some things, meals, activities, even bumping heads some, and without noticing it you get into a rhythm and a connection that wasn't there when you started. Usually you don't realize it until you're done and saying an emotional goodbye.
There's no shortcut to that connection you sense at the end. It builds and grows thru what happens as you spend time together.
You may notice the same kind of thing in any thinking or creative thing you do -- it takes time to "get in the zone" and interruption is your enemy. And it's the same with REM dream sleep -- there are stages of sleep you go thru before you get to the dreaming, and if you wake up, you start over. And REM sleep is important: people who get too little can be depressed.
It can be the same with God.
I notice there's a place I get with God when I've been thinking and reading and listening and praying for thirty minutes or an hour or more. And there's no shortcut. I can't get there in five minutes. It's like after five minutes it's blue and then later it's green and after an hour or more it's red. If there's any interruption, I have to start all over. I do the five minutes all the time, and it's important and worth it, but if I don't do the longer I never get to red. And I need red.
But, hey, I'm busy. How'm I supposed to find time for a regular, lengthy me & Him? There's just no way. I'm thinking maybe His reaction is, "That's OK, I'm not mad at you and I still love you, and you don't have to feel guilty, but I'm not changing this natural law. I put it there on purpose -- guess why." If you need red, there's only one way to get there.
From and thru
You might think of your devotional, relational time with God in three ways:
- the minutes-a-day quiet time
- the 'red zone' long-form relaxed time in his presence
- and the moment-to-moment sensitivity to him and his leadership as you go thru a day
The first one is probably the most common.
The third one is like a lifestyle habit of this sub-surface conversation with him. It's along the lines where the Bible says to keep in step with the Spirit, and do not grieve the Spirit, and "apart from Me you can do nothing." When you're with your spouse or someone you love, and you're doing something together, you're sensitive to them and their presence and desires. Same thing. Except this spouse created you and owns you and died for you and knows everything that's going on and how you fit in and why -- which can be a little extra motivation.
But the second one is the one we're talking about here.
All three are a big part of the quality of your relationship with him. And the quality of your service to him and others (ministry) is directly related to the quality of your relationship with him.
I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing -- John 15.5
Listening in -- starting at blue
The other day I had about ninety minutes of reading, thinking, meditating, praying and getting to red. Deal is, it's the first time in weeks and weeks that I've been beyond the fifteen minute mark. No, it's not about the time, but remember, you don't usually get red without the time. Before red, you start cool and blue, then heat up thru green. It's like the spectrum, left to right. And the little journey I took during that time reminded me how much I need that. We're not talking study -- we're talking listening and pondering. Here's what I would have missed -- the little journey with a definite point at the end...
________________________
I'm reading Psalm 111 (I read progressively thru the Psalms) and it reminds me of this constant sense of a need for wisdom and understanding. In the inner thought life. In family and marriage. Work and church. For decisions about jobs, kids, projects, emergencies, suprises. It's a constant tension always going on in some area.
And I read "the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom." This is actually all over the Bible. And the next words are, "all those who practice it have a good understanding."
I think about some conclusions I've come to (over the years) about what it means to fear the Lord: To be afraid to do anything apart from him. To be afraid to go out on your own and trust yourself. Be afraid, and that's the beginning of wisdom.
And I think it's pretty basic -- there's only two kinds of wisdom: Man's. And God's.
OK, that's about 10-15 minutes. Blue. Stop here, and next time you start over at blue. Keep going and you can get to green.
Listening in -- green
Next I'm in Proverbs (19 cause that was the day of the week). I had been thinking about the need for wisdom in making decisions, and how "fear of the Lord" is the beginning of that. Now I think it goes beyond individual decisions. This wisdom that starts with fearing the Lord ends up being about how you look at life and the world. How it works, what you expect.
It says, "Whoever gets sense loves his own soul; he who keeps understanding will discover good." I think: When you expect bad, you find it. When you expect good, you find IT. This is not positive thinking; it's sensitivity to what's already there. What do you want to focus on?
For example, if you look for bad in your spouse or kids or coworkers -- you'll find it! It's there! And if you look for good, you'll find that, too -- it's there. What do you want to focus on? What do you want people to focus on with you? They can find what's wrong with you -- it's there -- and you won't be able to argue.
I read, "Good sense makes one slow to anger, and it is his glory to overlook an offense." There IS something you could be angry about. There IS an offense. Are you going to focus on it? If you look for it, you will find it. There's always one there. But, wisdom, good sense and understanding say NO. And that starts with "fear of the Lord." You don't have to be angry or take offense. Things are in God's hands.
It says, "The fear of the Lord leads to life and whoever has it rests satisfied; he will not be visited by harm." There's no rest in being angry or offended. When you fear the Lord you leave things that belong to him, with him.
OK, that's a summary of about another forty minutes. Green. Stop here and you start over next time with blue. Keep going and you may get to red.
Listening in -- red
Now I go to Luke 8 -- in the New Testament I've been reading thru Luke. See how easy it is to know where to read when you follow a little schedule? I read thru Psalms and the Old Testament in the order they're written, and the Proverb numbered for that day, and I choose a book in the New Testament to read thru several times to get to know it better. I keep track of where I am, four different places in the Bible, so whenever I read I just pick up where I left off in one or more of those places. On a good day I'll read in all four places. Like I said earlier, it's been a few weeks since there's been a good day.
Jesus is in a boat with his guys during a big storm. If I hadn't read the previous things -- gone thru blue and green -- I would be starting over fresh here. But I HAVE been reading and thinking for about an hour, and those other things have sensitized me to the idea of "fearing the Lord." So that's in my mind as I turn to this next place in my reading "schedule." It's amazing how often it seems that schedule has been designed and, like, preordained, for that day. If I'll just read it.
So Jesus is in the boat, "And a windstorm came on the lake, and they were filling with water and were in danger." His guys wake him up -- the danger is not just in their minds, the boat IS filling with water! "Master, we are perishing!"
And Jesus rebukes the wind and the waves -- don't you love that? "Rebukes!" Like he corrects the wind, tells it it's wrong, tells it to knock it off. And the rage turns to calm. And he says to them, "'Where is your faith?' And they were afraid, and marveled, saying to one another, 'Who is this then, that he commands even winds and water and they obey him?'"
And I think, their fear of Jesus is not the same as their fear of perishing. It's more like the kind of feeling you have that makes you say, "Oh, my God!" It's an awesome respect of someone who is beyond fully understanding. You don't fool around with him. You don't treat him like just another person. He rebukes the wind! There is this sense of, what effect could this have on my life if I ignore him? I don't know, but I'm not going to mess around and find out.
Jesus calming and controlling the waves leads to them being afraid of him -- they know what he can do.
And here's where over an hour of reading and thinking and listening add up. And I think for me, this day, it added up in a way I would not have noticed, if I had started here cold. But since I had gone thru blue and been sensitized to the fear-the-Lord idea, and had kept reading into green and noticed more, it was like the Lord was leading me to something he wanted me to realize:
If his friends in the boat had been afraid, in awe, of him BEFORE the storm, they would NOT have been afraid of the storm. If they had known "who then is this," their reaction to the danger and the storm would have been radically altered.
Now for me, I say I do know 'who then is this,' and that I have faith in him, but my reaction of insecure nervousness in even small, undangerous circumstances betrays what I say I believe. So now what? I don't know.
This is a different, and more uncomfortable reaction than I had in the first fifteen minutes of my quiet time (blue), when I had a nice, true observation about wisdom and fear of the Lord. Now it's personal and challenging, and for me, a place I would not have arrived without the little journey from blue to green to red. Which may be why I don't take that journey all that often.
