Solitude is the fix

Last night's youth lesson notes, I will do a better job in the future of putting my thoughts down more completely so that it reads a little better. Capturing your time(your life) Illustration:Early African converts to Christianity were earnest and regular in private devotions. Each one reportedly had a separate spot in the thicket where he would pour out his heart to God. Over time the paths to these places became well worn. As a result, if one of these believers began to neglect prayer, it was soon apparent to the others. They would kindly remind the negligent one, "Brother, the grass grows on your path." Mark 1:35-37 Why did Jesus get up at the crack of dawn and spend time with God? He was God? Listen if Jesus, God’s own son had to get away from everything and renew his mind and spend time alone with God then we must need that desparately. What is a quiet time? It is a time when you sit alone, clear your mind and talk to and hear from God. It's a time that you designate just for you and God, no noise, no distractions, and no one else just the two of you. You cannot have a relationship with anyone, husband or wife, boyfriend or girlfriend, best friend and so on without some time alone with them. You need intimate moments where it is only the two of you without distractions and without others there. You need it far worse with God than with anyone else. What was the purpose for leaving the house? He wanted a completely undistracted time alone with God. Do you turn off the tv, the cellphone, the noise of life when you do your quiet time. Is it even quiet in your room, your area, your mind when you do it? Who needs a quiet time? Here are some names from the Bible: Moses, Jonah, David, John the Baptist, Paul and Jesus Moses was all alone when God called him to lead the Israelites into the promised land. Jonah was all alone when God called him to go to ninevah. David was all alone on several instances that God called him to action. Paul was all alone on the road to Damascus when God changed his whole life. Now Jesus we see several times was all alone when talking to His own Father. God used quiet times of oneness with Him to make all of them different. To mold them into what He needed them to be to impact this world he used times of one on one. One of the best things you can do is have a consistent time and place that you do your quiet times. What is involved in a quiet time? Quiet, stillness and solitude A designated time: you have to set aside the time every day or it won’t happen. A designated place: Every day that you can, you need a place and a time to set aside for your quiet time. Prayer: I prefer to pray, then read and then pray some more. It’s all up to you. Prayer in starts it off and helps me clear my mind of busyness. Reading is where I let God talk to me and allow for my own spiritual growth. Another prayer afterwards let’s me verbalize my learning from the readings that day. Psalm 46:10 Be still and know that I am God. Prayer, reading your Bible and solitude is what it is all about. This is a time when you are more aware than any other part of your day just who is in control, who is in charge, and who you owe everything to. I read a book in seminary called The Way of the Heart, and one of the things I remember about the book was that he described the kind of transformation we talked about last week. He said that “Solitude is the furnace of transformation” In other words nothing about your prayer life, your Bible reading or studying is ever going to change you unless it is quiet. Not just quiet in the physical sense but in the mental and spiritual sense as well. Solitude is another one of those things that we are afraid of isn’t it. Here is a test for you: Do you always have to be communicating with someone? Do you always have to have the television on or the radio? Do you ever sit alone and eat lunch, or dinner? Do you ever sit in absolute quiet and feel okay about it? Do you ever drive all alone in your car without the radio on? Intimacy with God is hard to get, it’s hard to grasp because it is dependent on time. Time is the one thing that we all have the same amount of. We all have the same amount of time each day, though at times it may seem like less and less. I hear people say all the time that time flies by, they can't get a handle on life because time is flying by. I can gaurantee you that if you sit still for a few minutes, no music, no noise, no thoughts about where you should be or what you are doing next time will slow down for you. I do this first thing in the morning, I do this around lunch time and again at night. Some nights Tara and I just go sit outside in the rocking chairs and chill, not really talking or anything, just slowing down and sitting in true solitude. Solitude helps you capture time. Think about it, if you truly relax and slow down and sit in true solitude. Not thinking about where you should be, what you should be doing, or what is going on somewhere else. Really, truly sit still and slow your mind down you will really, truly capture the time. Thanks for reading and have a great day!