How Our Times are Making the Case for Time Alone with God
People who have walked with God for years will often talk about their “quiet times” with God, the regular time they set aside to be alone with God.
That time isn’t necessarily prolonged. Sure, you’ll hear stories of men and women of God spending hours in prayer and Bible reading. But duration isn’t the issue. For many believers, it is the quality of their time alone with God that makes the quantity of time a secondary matter.
Think of quiet time with God is a kind of daily Sabbath, time that from a purely utilitarian point of view is “wasted.” Quiet time with God is not “productive,” not a task to check off a list.
And that is the point.
Just as the Sabbath is time set aside to stand down, time for rest and worship, so the daily time alone with God is a quiet moment to rest my mind and worship God, to hear from Him in His Word and to commune with Him in prayer. It is a daily touch-point to realign my purposes with His and take a deep breath in His Presence before I face the day.
It is intriguing to me that spending time alone with God is so important, yet there is not a chapter-and-verse command that we must set aside time to be with God in His Word and prayer. If this practice is such a vital part of our spiritual well-being, why doesn’t God tell us to do it?
I think there is a useful parallel to the role that food plays in our physical well-being. Our normal motivation for eating food is our hunger. Habit plays a role, of course, as well as our own awareness of what happens to our brains and our bodies when we go too long without eating.
But except for extreme circumstances – profound grief, illness, busyness – we eat because we want to. We eat because we enjoy the sensation of tasting and chewing and swallowing food, and we like the feeling of a full and satisfied belly.
All this is a gift from God, that we would naturally crave what we naturally need, nourishment for our bodies.
And when I need food, it is not guilt that alerts me to that fact. What I feel is hunger or light-headedness or irritability, and it is those sensations that remind me that I need to eat.
So, no, there is no chapter and verse commanding us to spend time alone with God, any more than there is chapter and verse telling us to eat. But just as it is in our best interests to eat regularly and well, it is in our best interests to spend time alone with our Heavenly Father. This is not a command so much as it is His gracious invitation.
And when we neglect to respond to His invitation, we experience weariness of spirit, discouragement, and loss of spiritual focus. Our inner man fades when we neglect our spiritual nourishment just as our bodies fade when we neglect physical sustenance.
If there was ever a time when we needed to set aside time to be alone with God, it is now. The steady drumbeat of bad news can be both deafening and distressing. I can’t remember such a perfect storm of racial unrest and political rancor, all in the middle of an unprecedented public health crisis.
If my frame of mind is the product of what I hear and see in the news, I am quite properly dismayed.
I see the images of racial violence in the streets, and I am tempted to think that racial unrest has become a fixed and unchanging feature in our society. Things are so bad now that it is not easy to imagine that there will ever be a time when racial unrest is finally a thing of the past, and I am tempted to despair.
But I think that way only because that’s what I see around me right now.
When I am alone with God I see a very different picture. In God’s Word I see where God is taking His people: After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!” (Rev 7:9-10).
I see the rancor in our political discourse, and I am tempted to despair. Our political conversation has devolved into shrieks of outrage; we are trying to conduct political conversations by hurling bumper sticker slogans at one another and by provoking violence in the streets. If this is our only means of conducting political discussions, there is no path forward, and I am tempted to despair.
But I think that way only because that’s what I see around me right now.
When I am alone with God I see a very different picture.
In in the ancient words of the psalmist I see that God is not dismayed at the outrage in our political discourse.
He is, in fact, not dismayed but amused.
Why do the nations rage
and the peoples plot in vain?
The kings of the earth set themselves,
and the rulers take counsel together,
against the Lord and against his Anointed…
He who sits in the heavens laughs;
the Lord holds them in derision.
Then he will speak to them in his wrath,
and terrify them in his fury, saying,
“As for me, I have set my King
on Zion, my holy hill.”
Now therefore, O kings, be wise;
be warned, O rulers of the earth.
Serve the Lord with fear,
and rejoice with trembling.
Kiss the Son,
lest he be angry, and you perish in the way,
for his wrath is quickly kindled.
Blessed are all who take refuge in him. (Psalm 2).
I see the entire world gripped by a deadly disease. I hear predictions that hundreds of thousands that will die, and I see the enormous economic upheaval that has come with the pandemic. I fear for the safety of my loved ones.
The dread of contagion is never far from my mind, creating a constant background noise of toxic anxiety that contaminates everything I see and hear. And I am tempted to despair.
But I think that way only because that’s what I see around me right now.
When I am alone with God I see a very different picture. The day will come when those who put their faith in Jesus “shall hunger no more, neither thirst anymore; the sun shall not strike them, nor any scorching heat. For the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of living water, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.” Rev 7:16-17
If there ever was a time when I needed to set aside time to be alone with God in His Word, it is these fracture, desperate times we live in.
I need time alone with God the way I need to eat.
Not because I must.
Not because it is an unfinished task.
Not because I will feel guilty if I don’t.
I need be alone with our promise-keeping God to catch my breath and let God’s Spirit speak by His Word into my troubled soul.
Persevere,
Paul Pyle
Discipleship Weekly
Subscribe to receive Discipleship Weekly in your inbox each week.