In Pursuit of a "Quiet Life" :: Part 1

As I eluded to yesterday, quiet time has been touted as The Holy Grail of our relationship with God. You are to sit quietly and alone, read and/or study a passage and pray, daily, to make sure you have spent time with God before you go off and live like everyone else. If you do not have your quiet time, fellow Christians might start knocking on your door, or via your RSS reader, and call you to repentance for grave sin. Should you skip it, some folks even start questioning your salvation or dedication to Christ.

Examples from the lives of Moses, King David and even Jesus suggest that they spent time alone with God in prayer. We are told the kings were to read The Law all the days of their lives, but what about Adam and Abraham who never had the Scriptures to study? While the example of spending time in God's Word and prayer is modeled, how was it done?

Scripture talks of praying without ceasing (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18); studying to correctly handle the word of truth (2 Timothy 2:15); and to always be prepared to give an answer (1 Peter 3:15), but "Thou shalt have quiet time" is no where to be found. A biblical command to keep a "quiet time," as usually taught, is not there. How did the church get here from there?

Over the years the church has embraced traditions, that although may be very good, aren't a mandate of Scripture. Quiet time is one of those as far as I'm concerned. I think we've taken a great idea and elevated it to something it wasn't meant to be. Instead of making people feel guilty for not having a completed check list of things they "must" do in order to be "holy," we need to encourage folks to connect with God and study his word in a way that works for them in their particular season in life.

Several years ago I read Come As You Are by Marita Littauer and Betty Southard. The point of the book is that different personalities understand, relate to and worship God differently. It then provides ideas and suggestions to grow as a Christian and in your worship of the Lord. For me, as long as the truth of God's Word is handled correctly, I find little difference in whether you pray quietly in your chair at 6AM or out loud while you swap laundry at 11 o'clock. Both bring you into communion with God.

There is a complete profession dedicated to categorizing and grouping the unique characteristics God gave folks. It's even known in education circles that there are several types of learners - auditory, tactile, visual, etc. and you need to teach them each differently for them to truly learn a subject. Why do we then continue to exclaim proudly that "God made us each different!" and turn around and insist on a cook cutter way to be a better Christian? We can't have it both ways.

As Christians, we need to embrace our God created differences in our worship of him. Ultimately, no matter where we are in our Christian walk, it's not about one specific daily thing that we do. It's about a moment by moment relationship of seeking God, dumping the sin in our lives, living his will and basking in his presence as we go about our daily lives. And we need to do that 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year - not just every morning from 6AM to 7.