Tag: quiet time

The Listmaker

On By Michele Huey, Author & SpeakerIn Christian livingLeave a comment

Image by OpenClipart-Vectors from Pixabay 

O God, You are my God, earnestly I seek You; my soul thirsts for You, my body longs for You, in a dry and weary land where there is no water.  – Psalm 63:1

Whenever my daughter, Jaime, and her family drove from South Carolina for an extended family visit, this mama and grandma got in gear weeks before, making my all-important lists: housecleaning lists, grocery lists, lists of deadlines and other writing-related work that needed to be completed before and during her stay. 

My plan was to have only one list while she’s here, with only one item: “enjoy the chaos and the fun.” 

In the rush to get everything done, I skipped my daily quiet time. I gulped my morning hot tea as I flit from chore to chore. It was iced tea by the time I finished it. 

But the more I crossed off my lists, the more frenzied I became. Whatever happened to my “slow down, pace myself, and enjoy life” philosophy?

It was gone with an earthquake, wind, and fire of my own making. 

“I miss you, God,” I whispered one morning, ignoring the urge to grab my Bible and my cup of tea and head to the back deck and leave behind the list of devotional readings and prayer lists so it would be just me and God. 

But I couldn’t. 

Lists – do they serve me – or do I serve them?

Jesus was crazy busy too. But the Son of God took time out to go on a mountain or to a quiet place like a garden before the crowds showed up, before the disciples stirred from their beds on the ground, before the world awakened. He took no devotional books with Him, not even a scroll of Scripture. It was just Jesus and God. In communion with each other. Talking and listening. 

Why do I think I need anything more than me when I approach God?

Because I feel naked without my lists. I hide from Him behind my Scripture reading for the day, behind the devotionals written by others, behind the lists of prayer requests. I rush through the readings, checking them off the quiet time list so I can get to that all-important work list. 

I can face the earthquake, the wind, and the fire, but I’m afraid of the whisper. 

But I feel empty. It’s like gulping a cup of tea without taking time to savor its essence and inhale its aroma. Or shoving food in my mouth and swallowing without tasting each unique flavor that begs to be enjoyed. 

My friend Kathy Bolduc takes her Bible, her journal, and her cup of tea to a place where she can be alone and observe God in creation around her. Then she reads a portion of Scripture slowly, savoring every word, meditating on God’s message and how it applies to her. 

If a hectic schedule or fatigue causes her to miss a day, she doesn’t have the stress of a catch-up list. She simply meets with the God who is waiting for her. 

He’s waiting for me, too. 

Give me the courage to shed the lists that I hide behind, Lord. Only then will I hear Your whisper. Amen.

Read and reflect on Psalm 63:1–8; 1 Kings 19:8–13. 

From God, Me, & a Cup of Tea: 101 devotional readings to savor during your time with God © 2017 Michele Huey. All rights reserved.

Journey Back Home

On By Michele Huey, Author & SpeakerIn Christian livingLeave a comment

If we are faithless, He remains faithful; He cannot deny Himself. – 2 Timothy 2:13 (NKJV)

I got up this morning at 5:30—a good hour and a half before my scheduled “rise and shine” time. At first I thought I’d go back to bed after my bathroom trek, but my already too-long do-list got longer yesterday when I added an ambitious project with a Nov. 30 deadline. So I knew snuggling back under the covers would be futile. I’d just toss and turn and think and think and think. Body tired, mind wired. You know the feeling.

So I made my cup of caffeine, dressed, and headed to my study.

Since I was up early, I decided to have my quiet time, which, I’m ashamed to admit, has been sorely lacking. I opened my prayer notebook first. My last entry was Feb. 10. And the time before that was Jan. 17. Well, at least it was this year. When I opened my spiritual journal, I was aghast when I saw the date of the last entry: Dec. 14. My Bible study notebook was just as pathetically neglected. I used to write in them every day.

No wonder I’d been feeling adrift, mentally and spiritually.

Last year I blamed my dwindling time with God on life issues, particularly health challenges and family relationships, the latter undergoing tumultuous changes.

Have you ever felt like you’re standing in the midst of fallout you didn’t create? Yet there you are, stuck in the middle of it all, hanging on to a diminishing sense of direction. Well, that’s where I was last year.

This year, as those issues began to smooth out, a monster project took over my life: planning a month-long trip with our fifth-wheel camper to the Pacific Northwest with two other couples. Not an undertaking to sneeze at. Coordinating schedules, planning routes and stops and meals and clothes, getting the camper and truck ready for a 7,000-mile trip, downloading and learning to use travel apps we’d use on the journey—chunk by chunk usurped my time. Small wonder I’m way behind on my novel-writing schedule.

But I shouldn’t blame busyness for not taking time with God. I mean, who really sets my schedule? I’m my own worst taskmaster—slave driver is a better term.

But the more I got done, the less fulfilled and more empty I felt.

You can’t replace God with busyness, no matter how urgent or necessary your activities are. Only God can satisfy your soul. And if your spirit is empty of Him, your entire being—physical, mental, and emotional—is affected. It’s like you’re on a journey with no destination, without a map or app or plan, and are running on fumes.

So this morning, when I finally took quality time to meet with God (and not with one eye on the clock), God met with me. He had, after all, been patiently waiting for me to stop manufacturing excuses and make time with Him my top priority once again.

I opened my Bible to where I’d left off with my personal (and also sporadic) Bible study two months ago, Psalm 37: “Consider the staggering fact that the Creator of time and eternity loves you,” I read in the warm up section. “Write down 10 things you can think of about the love of God.”

Wow! What a place to begin my journey back to God—His love for me. The first three came easily—I’d been pondering them all year: Unconditional. Undeserved. Unlimited. Then, like water sputtering from a hand pump, more words to describe God’s incredible love for me poured forth: steadfast, eternal, healing, unchanging, sacrificial, reliable.

God’s love—the more I meditated on it, the harder it was to wrap my mind around it.

I hadn’t been faithful to Him, but He’d remained faithful to me.

As I wrote the words of Lamentations 3:21–23 in my spiritual journal and the words of Psalm 51:10–12 in my prayer notebook, I knew I’d finally returned home.

Thank you, Father, for Your steadfast, unlimited love. I don’t deserve it, but that’s what unconditional means, doesn’t it? Thank You for pouring its healing grace into my thirsty, travel-weary soul. Amen.

Read and meditate on Lamentations 3:21–23

(c) 2017 Michele Huey. All rights reserved.

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