“Oh how love I Thy law! It is my meditation all the day.” Psalm 119:97
I was out on my porch at about 11:45 last night and it was very quiet. I wasn’t even hearing traffic on the highway and that was unusual. It was really easy to think (well, as easy as it is for me to ever think). It reminded me of a Saturday a while back when Chris, 
Noah, and I met at Dorena Lake. We stopped at two campgrounds and a few other places on our trip around the lake, and at a couple of our stops it was just so quiet that Chris made a comment about it. I guess we get so used to noise that when we can’t hear anything, it almost strikes us as odd.
That is why it is important to get away from it all and spend some time with Lord on a consistent basis, eliminating all distractions and just giving Him and Him alone some of our alone time. Christianity is not a legal relationship, it is a love relationship. We should not have to be forced to spend time with Him by threat, but by our own desire. We are called to more like Christ, but we cannot do that on our own, we need to spend time with Him.
Of course, the key to all of this is determining a need, and thus a desire, to spend time with the Lord, so we need to start there. So let’s just say we see the value of spending at least a few minutes with God each day and we want to take some steps to make it happen. The very first step is to pray about it. We are not naturally inclined to do the right things. I sometimes console myself after a bad golf game by 
reminding myself that I am trying to get a little ball into a little hole that has the whole world around it. Well, when we want to put ourselves in a special spot with the lord, we are surrounded by the whole world that opposes us. So we must enlist the only one who can help us, the maker of the whole world. Once we decide to create a quiet time and pray for God’s guidance, it is time to begin the process.
One of my favorite Pastors, Adrian Rodgers, lists five things to keep in mind when trying to develop a good quiet time with the Lord. The proper period, preparation, place, provision, and preparation are all essential to creating a special time with God. Of course, like I said, this all follows prayer, so what we have here are the six p’s of creating a peaceful time with God. Wait a minute, peaceful, that’s now seven p’s!
First we must find a proper period of time. We should strive for at least half an hour, but some time is better than no time, so if we can’t start at thirty minutes, we should begin with ten. It should be a time when we are alert. We all know when our alert times are. Morning is good if it is possible. Psalm 5:3 says, “… in the morning will I direct my prayer unto Thee, and will look up.” But whenever is the best time, it is best if it is the same time, all the time. It’s funny because many spend countless hours in endeavors that will help their physical bodies, but struggle to give ten minutes to their spiritual ones.
It is important that we properly prepare for this time by clearing our heads of distractions. If we have something in our hearts that needs to be taken care of, we need to take care of it. We need think upon the Lord, not on our shortcomings. Like readying ourselves for any other endeavor, we must separate ourselves from anything that will steal our focus.
Once we have decided on a time and have prepared ourselves mentally, we must find a proper place where we can focus. Jesus said enter into your closet and pray (see Matthew 6:6) but that simply means to find a place of isolation where we can shut the door on the world and open the windows to heaven. Jesus sought out places where He could be alone, and so should we.
In getting ready for the camping trip this weekend,
I am making a list of provisions. If I don’t make a list, I will be without what is necessary, when it is necessary. Nothing worse than trying to clean a fish with a spoon. There are several proper provisions that can be helpful to us in our quiet time. A good Bible (readable, accurate, and familiar) is essential and a prayer journal and/or notepad for writing is advisable. There are all kinds of other things that can be added later, but for starters, this is really all we need.
So what would be the proper procedures for an effective quiet time? First of all, we need to quiet our spirits. The Bible says in Psalm 46:10, “Be still, and know that I am God.” After we quiet ourselves, it is good to read the Word. We like to jump right in and talk to God, but He already knows us pretty well. It might be best to get to know Him better. We tend to focus on self, but we want to focus on God, instead. When reading, how much we read is not nearly as important as how we read. Reading goals (reading through the Bible in a year) and devotionals should probably remain separate from our quiet time. A quiet time should just be us and God. We can read other authors at other times.
After we have read and maybe looked at how the passages apply to us and maybe even jotted down a few notes, we are ready to pray. Our prayer time should be honest and 
open. I like praying aloud (when I am not in a public place!) for two reasons. One, I think it focuses us better. It is harder for our minds to wander when we are hearing what we are saying. Secondly, the dark principalities and powers of this world can’t read our thoughts, but they can hear our words and nothing clears them out of an area faster than prayer!
Each day we should take what we learn during our quiet time and apply it to our day. I have heard it said that our spiritual train runs on two rails, knowledge and obedience. If either rail stops, so does the train. Remember, pray that God will help us to begin. When it comes to good things we should do, it’s always best to start at the beginning. Any time is better than no time and more time is better than little time. Developing a good quiet time can be a little like my golf game. It might take a while to get there, lagging our way up to the green, and we may get off in the woods at times, but we need to just keep shooting for the goal and eventually we will get there! We just can’t stop trying!
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