The more I think I have everything figured out, the more I realize that I really don't even have a clue. Now I know that is going to be a shock to most of you, so take your time getting over that, and read on at your own pace.
I could go on for days and days listing all the ways that I have been proven wrong over the past year, but you would get bored after the 213th one, so I decided to narrow it down to a bit and share a few of them, one at a time. These are in no way ordered by philosophical importance, just things that finally cracked through this stubborn brain of mine.
Quiet Time
I have grown up hearing that term, but I'll be honest and tell you that I have never been really sure what "quiet" time is. I was fairly sure of a few things. First, it always took place before the sun woke up and was best acquired if you traveled to some sort of mountain top each morning. On the way to the mountain top you would listen to Sandi Patty and after a few hours of prayer God would lean down and kiss the earth, the sun would then break the horizon line and angels would sing and you would know that you had spent time with the Creator.
Another favorite term I remember from my childhood was going to your "prayer closet". Now this one really freaked me out. I imagined the old people of my church climbing in their closet each morning to have their quiet time with God. As I got older it made me chuckle a little to think that each morning they then "came out of the closet".
Anyway, there have been so many times in my life when I have made the decision to wake up before the sun and spend time reading the bible and praying. To do what real Christians do, the kind that not only get to live in Heaven, but get to live in the part that is a gated community past the standard pearly gates, the diamond studded gates. Like the houses that are down the street from Max Lucado and Carmen, where Ray Boltz sings every night at the all you can eat buffet. Super Christian territory.
As many times as I had tried it, I had failed. The reasons are varied. Sometimes quiet time....early morning....in the dark ....in the quiet....would often turn to sleeping time. When I was able to stay awake I would play that Bible game that everyone has played at sometime in their lives, where I would close my eyes and open it up to a random page and expect pixie dust to fall out and angels sing as God reveals something special that only my eyes would ever see. That never happened. I tried doing devotionals or "just" praying, but it never seemed to have the power that everyone else talked about. It was like maybe I was just so close to God that He really didn't need a special time with me. He was busy moving in the lives of the other sinners and he just wanted me to sleep an extra hour. In my delusional mind it all made perfect sense.
And then something changed. Committed to figuring this whole thing out, I began to experiment a little with quiet time. I usually spend an hour or so every evening reading through the lessons that I am going to teach to the kids on Sunday mornings and Wednesday nights. Slowly, what happened is that I started to not just see them but to look into them in a way that I had not before. Those same scriptures that were part of the lesson to be taught to 2nd and 3rd graders had an all new meaning for me. I had found a space to do my quiet time, it just looked nothing like I had expected.
At 5 am in the morning, I still think that I can do it all on my own. In the quiet darkness of a new day, Matthew 5 was written for someone else, someone less fortunate than me. Before the day starts, I have a plan in place for how and where I will allow God to work and be seen.
At the end of the day I am beaten up, I am drained of every ounce of feeling like I could ever control this life. At the end of the day Matthew 5 is not only for me, it often is the only thing that makes doing it all over again the next day a possibility. At the end of the day I am able to look back over the last 12 hours and know that none of it was of my own strength, to see all the places where I was held.
So it's not in the morning, it's not structured, I never go into my closet, but it's our time. I'm ok with not living down the street from Billy Graham in heaven. Hopefully I will be able to hear the Winans from my chic little studio apartment.
