Shannon S. McKee

musings and moments

Getting Practical: 2 Tips For a Better Quiet Time

by 2 Comments

As I come out of the last 15 months of pandemic living, I’m doing a lot of reflecting and reevaluating. You’d think that with all the extra time we had (because so many things were cancelled), that our inner lives would be stellar now. But, I’m not so sure they really area. Therapists tell us that people simply are not OK. This pandemic has been hard on us. And like any traumatic experience, it’s going to take some intentional thought and reflection to get back to healthy rhythms.

One of those important rhythms is spending regular time meditating on God’s words to us in the Bible and then talking to Him about those words through journaling or praying. At some point in history, people started calling that time a “quiet time” or a QT. I suppose that is as good a name as any. But it’s also OK if your quiet time is actually loud. The point is not so much what you call it but that you are building this important rhythm into your life. As with any relationship it’s important to spend time with God – listening to Him through His Word and sharing your own heart with Him through prayer and/or journaling.

Since our women just started a new Bible study for the summer at my church, I thought I’d take a couple of posts to talk about quiet times and how to make them happen.

For today, I’ve got two very practical, logistical suggestions.

  1. Pick a time that works for your schedule.

An important step in making quiet time a daily habit is that you pick a time that works with your schedule. That might be at 6:30 am, before the kids wake up, or it might be at mid-day over lunch, or it might be before bed. Too often, we try to imitate what works for someone else and then we end up discouraged because we don’t stick with it. Don’t pick 5:30 a.m. because your friend picked 5:30 a.m. Pick a time that works with your season of life and your preferences. Are you a morning person or do you come alive at night? Are you an extrovert who is going to struggle to have quiet time if others are around to talk to? Do you have young kids who nap? Do you have a roommate you have to schedule around?

If you are not sure where daily regular time could fit into your schedule, here are some ideas that you might like to try out:

  • in the morning before the kids wake up
  • before going to bed at night
  • over breakfast (if you’re with tiny humans, give them something to work on)
  • for half-an-hour after supper
  • during lunch, or for 15 minutes after lunch
  • while your little people are napping/playing games/doing homework/watching TV/having quiet time
  • at the park
  • while the kids are playing in the backyard
  • on a break at work
  • in the car while waiting in a carpool line
  • on the sidelines while a kiddo is at practice

There are so many little chunks of time that you can reclaim and use to get intentional time with God! I have found that some of these chunks of time get stolen by scrolling on my phone UNLESS I am intentional to do otherwise.

  1. Have a plan.

But how do you make the most of that time in a structured, easy-to-follow, and sustainable way? Right now, the women at our church are studying the book of Jude for the summer so I’ll write as if I’m giving advice to one of them. Translate it into your own world.

Here is a super simple way to structure your time with God:

  1. Have all your stuff in one place: your Jude workbook, your Bible or Bible app, your dictionary, a journal (if you use one), and a favorite pen or pencil. Collect all of it and keep it all together in one place – maybe even put it in a basket or tote bag – so that it’s easy to grab. Never let yourself grab THAT pen or let one of the other people in your home borrow from that basket. If you set aside 15 minutes to meet with God, you don’t want to spend 5 of those minutes hunting down your stuff. One other random thing that I would include in this basket is a notepad for jotting down all the random things that come to your mind that would distract you from staying engaged. Just jot things there and move right back to reading your Bible or journaling.
  2. If it’s helpful for you, find a cozy spot. I’m all about the cozy so I like to have my tea, light a candle, and settle into a good chair. That might not matter as much to you. Or, you might be squeezing your quiet time in while tiny humans run around you or while you’re on your lunch break at work. So, take it with a grain of salt and work it in if you want. We’re all different and that’s OK too! You don’t HAVE to do what I do. But, if it helps you to engage, by all means, make your space cozy!
  3. Take a few moments at the beginning to quiet your mind. Put down your phone. Turn off any distractions. Take 3 deep breaths.
  4. Pray. It’s always good to start here and acknowledge your dependence on Him. Remember WHO you’re reading about and talking to. Thank Him for being a God who speaks and for inviting us into relationship with Him. Ask Him for insight. Ask Him to help you connect with Him and not just go through the motions.
  5. Try reading the scripture for the day out loud. It’s a super helpful practice. And, in this particular study of Jude, it’s usually only a verse or two.
  6. Follow the directions and trust the workbook’s author to lead you through a format for the day. Even if her question seems silly or obvious (or a waste of time) to you, give it a shot. You might learn a new skill or be surprised what you see by just doing it.
  7. Pray and/or journal. Reflect back on what you learned. Talk to God about it again. Doing both would be great if you have the time!
  8. If you’re a verbal processor, follow-up by talking about it with your spouse or a friend. This doesn’t have to be a long convo. Maybe just a few moments of sharing. It doesn’t even have to be profound or new. Maybe it’s just reaffirming something you already knew about God. The point is that you get your thoughts and reflections about God out of your brain and into your world.

In the coming days, I’d like to share some of my favorite tools and approaches for Bible study, journaling, and praying. Hopefully it will help you to establish (or REestablish) this important rhythm in your own life. Meeting with God is so foundational as it affects all the other things we do and how we think. But it also, often, is an area of shame and defeat for Christians. I’d love to be a voice that still calls you to invest in this most-important relationship without attaching shame and failure to the struggle that is sometimes there. Being with your God is good for you: body, mind, heart, and soul. He created you as an integrated whole such that your times with Him will impact each of those areas of life. Sometimes, the thing holding you back is bigger than a few practical tips. But, let’s try to tackle the easy stuff first and see if regrouping or trying a new approach doesn’t help you move into this important rhythm.

In addition to some of my tips here, there is a really great resource that our pastors put together on our church web site  The link for that is here: https://redemptionchapel.com/meet/. 

 

Considering Your Legacy

by Leave a Comment

“Leaving a legacy.” It’s one of those phrases that feels weighty and important. Something within us leaps at the idea but it’s also vague and hard to pin down. It’s certainly the buzzword on the news lately with the retirement of SCOTUS Justice Anthony Kennedy.

What DOES it mean to leave a legacy? A strict dictionary definition defines it primarily in terms of money – an amount of money or property left to someone in a will. A secondary definition is still “sfuff” focused – a thing handed down by a predecessor (it’s an effect/consequence that could be good or bad). But, in recent years there is more and more being written about this idea of legacy. Time/life management books wisely challenge you to start with the end in mind: to imagine your funeral and consider what kind of legacy you want to leave.

Legacy is the idea of being remembered for what you have contributed to the world. In some cases, that contribution can be so noteworthy that history is changed and the whole world takes note. Think men and women like William Wilberforce, Harriet Tubman, Martin Luther King, Jr., Winston Churchill, etc. Truthfully, most of us won’t fall into that category. We will leave a more modest legacy that doesn’t necessarily change the world but does leave some kind of lasting footprint on the lives it touches.

The thing that strikes me – whether the legacy is world-changing or life-changing – is that I suspect the legacy-leaver was just a regular, everyday person like you or me who had been captured by two things: (1) a vision or calling that propelled them forward and (2) a desire to be faithful in light of that vision.

A vision that propelled them. They didn’t leave a legacy because they were all about “legacy” for legacy sake. Something had captured their hearts and imaginations. Their lives became about that something that was bigger than themselves. They went after that ideal or vision… and ended up having lasting impact. Take Wilberforce as an example – a series of events brought him to a place where he became convinced that slavery was wrong. He knew he had been placed in a position of influence for his job so he used that position in service to the broader conviction that had captured his heart. The result was that most of his adult life was devoted to, first, stopping the transatlantic slave trade and, second, outlawing slavery in England. The vision compelled him.

A desire to be faithful. For most legacy-leavers, the impact came along the way in small, everyday decisions to act or follow-through. Their vision caused them to order their life in such a way that little investments were made all along the way. Some call this personal mastery or personal effectiveness. Peter Senge says it this way: “Personal mastery is the discipline of continually clarifying and deepening our personal vision, of focusing our energies, of developing patience, and of seeing reality objectively.” These legacy-leavers stick at it. They overcome obstacles. They are disciplined in the small stuff. They do the next thing.

For Christians, both are clearly summed up in our discipleship to Christ. My life is not ordered around my family or my career or my hobbies. It’s ordered around God and His kingdom. My vision is a kingdom vision – He might call me to something specific within that (like He did with Wilberforce) but it also might just be a lot of years of becoming more like my Lord, faithfully loving others, giving my time and money, going out of my comfort zone, studying His Word, and praying. Basically, looking at my priorities and doing the next thing that is right in front of me.

The trick is that you never really know when your small act of faithfulness will produce something huge.

Like Lydia in the book of Acts. She was an entrepreneur in her community of Philippi – a seller of purple linens. As part of her weekly routine, she used to gather with some other girlfriends down by the river every day – to pray. They didn’t yet know the God to whom they prayed but they were obviously hungry for spiritual truth. Today, we’d call them seekers. The apostle Paul noticed them there and decided to seize the moment tell them about Jesus. Lydia’s heart leapt at this and she opened her life to Christ.

Something transformative happened in that moment and Lydia became captured by a vision bigger than herself – a Kingdom vision. So she acted. First, she told her whole family about Jesus – they responded like she had in faith. Then they all got baptized. The first church in Europe was planted that day. Because Lydia was responsive and faithful. It wasn’t long after that that she told Paul he could use her house to gather this fledgling church together. Because of her wealth and success as an entrepreneur, her house was likely an ideal place for such a gathering.

Some years later Paul would write a letter to the church at Philippi – at that writing, it wasn’t a fledgling church anymore. It was a thriving, influential church in the region.  A sending church. A giving church. A mature, theologically solid church that brought deep encouragement to the embattled apostle Paul.

Do you think that Lydia had all of that in mind when she offered her house as a gathering spot? Do you think she was thinking about her legacy? I don’t. I think she loved her Jesus, was compelled by His kingdom, and offered up what she had in service to that vision. Legacy was the result.

And, today, thousands of years later, another woman sits at her kitchen table in a small town in Ohio in the USA. She’s a little teary-eyed as she reads the words Paul wrote to that church in Philippi where sweet Lydia opened up her life and then her home.