Are Quiet Times the Answer To Getting Close to God?

If you ask any group, "How do you get close to God?" you usually get the same answer: spend time with Him.

It’s a good answer, but I don’t think it works.

At least not by itself.

Think of it this way: what if you were in a relationship, either married or dating, and you got bored with your partner?

You didn’t want to give him up—because you liked having a steady relationship—but you didn’t want a boring life either. What would you do?

Let’s say you decide to spice up your life a bit—nothing serious, just a little harmless fun.

So you go out dancing. You flirt with your co-workers. You have some good conversations.

Life is looking up.

But then one day the inevitable happens: you meet a guy you really like. He’s fun. He’s exciting, and he’s interested in you.

So you start a relationship with him.

As you become more and more enthralled with this new guy, you become less and less enamored of your husband or boyfriend.

But you’re still not ready to give him up.

So you ease your conscience. You schedule fifteen minutes a day with him to visit, usually right after breakfast. Yes, it’s a little boring. Yes, it’s a duty. But at least it keeps the relationship going.

So here’s the question: is fifteen minutes a day the answer to your lack of intimacy with your husband or boyfriend? Or is the problem deeper than that?

We can ask the same question of our relationship with God: is fifteen minutes a day the answer to our lack of intimacy with Him, or does the problem go deeper than that?

It’s easy to see in a real-life example that the girl is being unfair to her partner. It’s not so easy to see in our relationship with God because we’ve grown accustomed to the sins and idols in our lives that separate us from Him.

One of the beauties of our relationship with God, though, is that He’s willing to work with us in getting rid of those idols and sins.

And here’s the interesting thing: one of the best ways to get close to God is to work with Him in removing the sins and idols of our lives.

For those of you who have followed my blogs, you know my track record for posts is not great. I go full steam for a few weeks and then peter out when I start teaching local Bible studies and run out of time.

I’ve been thinking of an idea lately, though, that I’m hoping will work. I’d like to try teaching a class online when my current Bible studies are over which should be in a few weeks.

So if you’ve been reading these sporadic blogs and you’re interested in a class on how to work together with God to remove the sins and the idols in your life, keep checking back. I’d love to have you join the class.

Note: If you have this site saved as truthjournaling.com, I’m going to go back to emotionaleatingfreedom.blogspot.com for awhile so you may need to change that to be able to find the blog again.

Running from God

I forgot how crummy it feels to run from God. That’s what I was doing earlier this week. It wasn’t anything extreme—no drugs, no alcohol, not even much ice cream—in fact, if you lived with me, you wouldn’t have known I was running. But I was.

What did it look like? Well, on the inside it looked like this—incredible boredom, subdued grief, mild panic, and extreme restlessness. On the outside it looked like a woman complaining and making jokes about how bored she was but not doing anything to get unbored.

Actually, that’s not quite true. I did try a few things. I wandered around the house. I wandered around the yard. I even read a good book and watched the Survivor Finale on the internet. I also called a few friends and told them how bored I was.

What I didn’t do was go to God for the help I needed to cope with life. Instead, I just coasted through the days trying not to think—trying to cover up my emotions with recreational activities. And it didn’t work.

I was miserable. Yes, it was a functioning kind of miserable, but miserable just the same. How much better life is when I go to God for help as soon as I need that help! You know why I didn’t go? Because I didn’t want to think about it.

You see, a lot has happened the last couple weeks. First I gave some talks on emotional eating at the local hospital (a scary experience); then I had to wait three days to go back for further evaluation after a suspicious mammogram (everything turned out okay), and then we had a graduation party for our second son (who will be going to college in the fall) with all the accompanying “life with the kids has been so great—I can’t believe they’re all leaving” emotions.

In the midst of all that my oldest son left for a three month adventure in Europe and the Middle East, traveling alone, and sleeping who knows where (it’s a budget trip).

All those old feelings of being sad about the kids leaving and worrying about their welfare came back to haunt me—but instead of dealing with my emotions—renewing my mind and seeing the situation from God’s point of view, I just tried not to think about it.

Do you ever do this? Life is nagging at you, but you don’t want to deal with it? You’d rather just escape? Well, I can tell you from experience this is a bad idea—you can’t escape!

I love living at peace. I love making God’s priorities, my priorities. I love trusting in His sovereign nature and even submitting to His will. But none of these things happen by chance.

If my focus is on escaping life or even on making life so great I don’t want to escape it, I’m not going to live a peaceful life—because I can’t find peace without God.

I did find peace eventually. The third day of my run, I submitted to God. I prayed with thanksgiving. I truth journaled. I asked myself, “How am I seeing these situations in life? How does God see these same situations?” What I did was get God’s perspective on my life. And when I got His perspective, I also received His peace and joy.

We can’t create the perfect life. We can’t control life. We can’t guarantee our kids will always make wise decisions (or us, either, for that matter). But we can trust in God. We can rely on His goodness. We can recognize His sovereignty. We can go to Him with our concerns.

I’m through running—at least for this week. My goal is to be through running for good, but I’m not naïve enough to think I’ll never stumble again. So much of Christianity is learning how to live for God in each new situation that comes up. It just seems like I've had a lot of new situations lately.

I'm going to keep pressing on, though. I don't want to be a mom who worries. I don't want to be a woman who's afraid to do things that make her uncomfortable. I don't want to be a person who feels like life has to be exciting all the time. What I want to be is a woman who loves God and lives in His presence all the time.

Even when it's hard.