This last Friday I took part in a day long retreat that I originally had not been looking forward to. Not because I didn’t think it would be great, but rather because it was just a busy weekend for me, and the last thing I wanted to do was to go on another retreat. But what came out of the retreat has been revolutionary in my own thinking.
This retreat was a gathering of first year psychology students at Fuller Theological Seminary, and the purpose behind the whole retreat was to begin the process of integration for us as psychology students. But as part of this integration process, there were several things that Fuller felt important that we pay attention to as graduate students.
During one of these sessions, we took a closer look at quiet times and what that means to us, how we do it, etc. And when I sat down in this session and began to listen to the speaker I was completely glued to his words as I found myself resonating with what he was saying.
During this session, he asked us six basic questions (I have re-written/worded) that I felt very helpful. They are the following:
Questions:
1) What is the purpose, or what is it that you want to achieve through your quiet times?
2) How often do you do your quiet times? What length?
3) What do you do for your quiet time?
4) How do you feel during your quiet time? What do you experience? What emotions? What thoughts?
5) Does your quiet time achieve your desired purpose?
6) How do you feel when you go without a quiet time for a certain length? A season?
After I answered these questions I was pretty much dumbfounded at the fact that the way I go about doing my quiet times has no congruence with the purpose that I hoped to achieve, and what was the real outcome.
Let me give you an example of what answering these questions might look like, and what are some questions, or thoughts that may come out of it.
1) What is the purpose, or what is it that you want to achieve through your quiet times?
—-To connect with God; discernment;
2) How often do you do your quiet times? What length?
—-Every other day, for about a half hour.
3) What do you do for your quiet time?
—-Read different passages of the Bible; pray
4) How do you feel during your quiet time? What do you experience? What emotions? What thoughts?
—-I feel bored; disconnected; unfocused; apathetic
5) Does your quiet time achieve your desired purpose?
—-No. I don’t feel connected to God at all.
6) How do you feel when you go without a quiet time for a certain length? A season?
—-Disonnected; guilty; ashamed; embarrassed
This is just an example that I have made up, but that I know a lot of us can relate to. But it raises several questions:
1) If what we do for quiet time does not achieve the results or the purpose we desire, then why do we continue to do it?
2) Is guilt, and shame, really the motivation that should be driving our quiet times; if in fact that is how we really feel when we miss our quiet times?
3) Should we reconsider what we do for our quiet times?
4) Are there seasons maybe, when no matter what we do, we don’t feel connected to God, or we don’t feel like our results are achieved.
I cannot really go into all the nuances of this session, but what I walked away with was the desire to re-think how I spend time with God. Maybe spending my quiet times, simply reading Scripture, isn’t the only way to do a quiet time. Maybe going for a walk and watching and listening for God’s voice is another way sometimes. Maybe reading a book on theology isn’t always the way to connect with God. Maybe spending time in my garden, taking care of plants, is a reminder of John 15, and the parable of the vine and the branches, and a much better way for me to spend quiet time with God.
I have just come to believe that in most evangelical circles we have formulated only one way, or a very limited number of ways of what quiet times can consist of. And if anyone does not do these things, or does things outside of this formula, we tend to judge their spiritual life; or we tend to judge their relationship with God. Maybe the person that you see spending time in God’s word everyday for 30 minutes in the morning, isn’t anymore connected to God than the artist who spends some of their quiet time painting.
Am I saying you shouldn’t spend time in God’s Word? No. Am I saying that quiet times will always feel fruitful, and we will always feel like something great comes out of it? No.
But I think that we shouldn’t prescribe one type of quiet time for every Christian. Quiet times will reflect our lives in many ways, and there will be different seasons where we do different things. And that is okay. I think as Christians, and especially those who have a direct impact on people in Christian community, such as pastors and directorsâ¦..we should encourage people to find various and different ways to connect with God. Different ways to do quiet time. I also think that as Christians, our motivating factor for our quiet times, should not be driven by a sense of guilt, because we have not done it. But rather, it should be driven by a sense of pleasure, which is most often found by connecting with God in ways that are more congruent with who we are as people.
For me, Scripture is something very important to our quiet times. But that doesn’t mean it only involves sitting and reading in only one way. For me, it means sometimes, doing activities that give me better insight into the scriptures that I already know, such as planting a garden, or painting, or walking through a forest, or sitting on a beach.
People are not all the same, so why do we treat them as if they are?
