Friday, February 13, 2009

Closer to God, One Step at a TIme in 2009

I came across BibleSEO and found this great article How to Do Quiet Time - Time Alone with God.

It kind of goes along with this post that I wrote at the beginning of Jan. I didn't mention too much about what I wanted my relationship with God to be but it is one of the relationships I want to work on this year. Sometimes I feel like I just don't have time to pray or spend a lot of time with God so I just don't. Terrible I know but I'm being honest here.

So I found this article and thought it was something that was definitely doable for me. Baby steps Kiesha, always baby steps to start out with no matter what behavior you are trying to change or create.


It's a short and to the point article which it had to be to keep my attention.

Hope you enjoy it as much as I did and I will let you know how it goes. I'm sure most of you already do this but there has to be others out there like me, or at least I find comfort in telling myself that. :)


Quiet time is one of the most essential aspects of your Christian life. Many Christians take some time reading the bible everyday. While it is very useful, just reading the bible will not lead you to much fuller Christian walk with Christ. You need to spend time in his words, study and learn from it everyday. Without daily regular quiet time, our spiritual life can be seriously malnourished just as our body can be malnutritioned without proper food and water! I often wonder when people talk about forgetting to do their quiet time due to busy schedule; I have never found anybody who forgot to eat for a day due to work!

Here I am presenting simple steps to do your daily quiet time. While you don’t have to follow it exactly, it can serve as a guide.

Time: You can take about 10-15 minutes for quiet time. You can choose time according to you schedule. For some, morning works better, for others, night may work well. While, I recommend the morning time as you are much calmer and fresh, any time can work fine. It is also important to set fixed time everyday, as it brings discipline and consistency.

What do you need?
Your bible, note and pen. You can occasionally refer to bible commentary or dictionary for difficult passages of bible. But I would recommend studying bible as it is and ask God for his guidance to understand the passage. It is a very good practice to take notes in your quiet time. You will be amazed when you will see your quiet time notes years later!

How To do Quiet Time?

Start with prayer:
■Spend just few minutes in worship and thanksgiving.
■Spend some time in asking God for forgiveness for our sins.
■Ask for his guidance in today’s quiet time
■Passage for Quiet time: It is good to select any book of bible and read it continuously. It will help you to get the whole picture and can enjoy your quiet time more. Select about 8-10 verses, don’t select whole chapter, as you may not be able to cover it all. Select small paragraph according to passage.
■Read the paragraph for 2-3 times. This method is also called ASPECT method
.
■A – About God – What can you learn about God through this passage?
■S – Sin – Does it talk about any sin?
■P – Promise – Is there any promise in the word?
■E – Example – Is there any example, I can follow?
■C –Command – Which command I need to obey?
■T – Teaching – What can I learn from this passage?
■Concluding Prayer:
■Thank God for his guidance in quiet time
■Worship God for his characteristic
■Pray for deliverance from any sin
■Ask for strength for the day.



1 comments:

Sheryl said...

Thanks for stopping by and leaving the encouraging comment for me. I love that you are wanting to figure out "quiet time" for you and how it would work best.

On a totally different subject, I love the look of your blog. You did a great job.