How to Have a Quiet Time With God

Do you want to dramatically improve your relationship with Yahweh? Do you want to have a deeper understanding of who God is, what His will is for you, and how you should live this life? Do you want to feel more of God’s presence and see more of His power working in your life?

If yes, then you need to pay attention because what I’m about to share with you today will surely revolutionize your spiritual life. If you apply this solution religiously, you commit to it, and you do it on a regular basis, then I can assure you that your spiritual life would never be the same again.

What is this solution? I’m talking about having a quiet time with God. Now, that may sound simple or it doesn’t seem to be that life-changing, but I tell you, don’t underestimate the power of having a quiet time with God.

In this post, I want to answer 5 questions to help you better understand the importance of having quiet time with God:

1. What is quiet time with God?
2. What should be our attitude during our quiet time with God?
3. Why you should have a quiet time with God?
4. How you should have a quiet time with God?
5. What should we do during our quiet time with God?

With that, let’s now begin our discussion.

What is quiet time with God?

Quiet time is the time you spend with Yahweh with the least amount of distraction. It’s a time when you fully focus on God, in His word, and your relationship with Him.

What should be our attitude toward our quiet time with God?

We need to consider quiet time as a time to build our relationship with Yahweh. This is not some kind of religious ritual you should force yourself to do every day. Rather, you need to have eager anticipation, excitement, and enthusiasm as you look forward to having a quiet time with God.

Quiet time is as if you’re going to meet a close friend because that’s exactly what it is. You are meeting your closest friend.

Notice this type of eagerness in King David:

O God, You are my God;
Early will I seek You;
My soul thirsts for You;
My flesh longs for You
In a dry and thirsty land
Where there is no water.

2 So I have looked for You in the sanctuary,
To see Your power and Your glory. Psalms 63:1-2

In other translations, it says, “Earnestly will I seek you.” It tells us that we must be eager. It is something that we look forward to, something that we can’t wait to have.

I remember when my wife and I are still dating, I’m always excited to see her even if we just met a day before. We are in a long-distance relationship at that time. Thus, seeing her was a great treat for me.

Now, a lot of you can relate to that feeling. What if you have the same excitement with meeting God each day? What if you have the same eagerness? Just like David, his soul thirsts for God. His flesh longs for God like in a dry and thirsty land. That’s how David longed to have communion with God and that should be the same attitude we should have toward our quiet time with our Heavenly Father.

Why you should have a quiet time with God?

The Bible shows us that the most effective servants of God spend quiet time with God. Take a look at some of these biblical characters:

Job

⁵ So it was, when the days of feasting had run their course, that Job would send and sanctify them, and he would rise early in the morning and offer burnt offerings according to the number of them all. For Job said, “It may be that my sons have sinned and cursed God in their hearts.” Thus Job did regularly. Job 1:5

Abraham

²⁷ And Abraham went early in the morning to the place where he had stood before the LORD. Genesis 19:27

Moses

⁴ So he cut two tablets of stone like the first ones. Then Moses rose early in the morning and went up Mount Sinai, as the LORD had commanded him; and he took in his hand the two tablets of stone. Exodus 34:4

Jacob

¹⁸ Then Jacob rose early in the morning, and took the stone that he had put at his head, set it up as a pillar, and poured oil on top of it. Genesis 28:18

Hannah and Elkanah

¹⁹ Then they rose early in the morning and worshiped before the LORD, and returned and came to their house at Ramah. And Elkanah knew Hannah his wife, and the LORD remembered her. 1 Samuel 1:19 

David

³ My voice You shall hear in the morning, O LORD;
In the morning I will direct it to You,
And I will look up. Psalms 5:3

Abraham, Moses, King David, Job, Hannah, and so many more spent time with God.

Jesus Christ

Perhaps, the most important example we have is the example of our Master and Savior.

We read in Mark 1:35:

Now in the morning, having risen a long while before daylight, He went out and departed to a solitary place; and there He prayed.

There’s a reason why the men and women of God set aside a time of their day fully focused on God. The reason is that they realize that they can never be effective in following God if they don’t spend time with Him. You see, what we have in God is a relationship.

For that relationship to grow, we must and should spend time nurturing it. Just like in marriage, you nurture your relationship with your spouse through regular and consistent communication. You can’t expect to grow your relationship with God without spending time with Him.

In marriage, you talk to your spouse NOT because you have a written marriage contract. You don’t do it out of necessity or you’re forced to do it. You talk to your spouse because you LOVE him/her.

In the same manner, we spend time with God in our quiet time because we love Him. You can’t possibly say you love God and you don’t spend time with Him.

So, just to summarize, we should have quiet time with God to nurture our relationship with Him.

Don’t be deceived: you can never deepen your relationship with God without spending time with Him. That’s how crucial and important it is for us to have quiet time with Him on a regular basis.

How you should have a quiet time with God?

As you can imagine, setting aside time for God can be challenging. After all, we live in a world full of distractions and Satan will do his best to ensure we don’t spend time with God. 

So, what happens? We become so busy. We become overworked. We become tired. We overcommit to do a lot of unnecessary things that we don’t have time for God.

Now, if we don’t have time for God, can you imagine, what if God doesn’t have time for us? Thankfully, God always has time for us. The problem is that we don’t spend enough time with Him.

So, how can we set a quiet time with God?

Have quiet time in the morning

Ideally, you should have your quiet time with God early in the morning. Jesus Christ (Yahshua) knew very well that the more you put off your quiet time with God, the more it would be difficult to catch up. That’s why, He and other servants of God wake early in the morning. They make sure that they meet God first before they meet any person.

Having a quiet time is a great way for you to establish godly habits. If you wish to know which habits you should develop, be sure to learn more about our online course, “The 7 Powerful Habits of Highly Effective Christians.”

Be properly rested

One important thing is that you should be at your best when coming before God. What I mean by that is that God deserves the best time of your day as well as your best effort. 

You shouldn’t come to God sleepy and exhausted. You should be alert. That’s why you should properly be rested the night before. Go to bed early and be ready to meet God in the morning. 

Choose a place where you spend time with God

Choose a place where you can have a quiet time. Now, I know, this too can be challenging because not all of us have a spacious house or area. This is where your creativity comes in. You need to create a space where there is the least amount of distraction, where you can pray aloud to God, and even worship Him without getting disturbed.

What should we do during our quiet time with God?

Finally, the last question we should answer is, what should we do during our quiet time with God? We already know why we should have quiet time with God, but what do you exactly do during that time?

There are a lot of things you can do, but here are the most essential:

Prayer 

Prayer is one of the most effective ways for you to talk to God. This is the time when you share your thoughts with God, express your gratitude for Him, tell Him your needs, ask for guidance and blessings, and share your inmost thoughts with God. You can pray before and after your quiet time.

[Learn more about how to pray through our online course, Teach Us To Pray.]

Singing hymns

After prayer, you can then sing hymns. Personally, what I do is sing 3 random songs from our hymnal. Praising Yahweh and worshiping Him is a great way for us to spend our quiet time with Him.

Bible reading and study

After talking to God through prayer, we then listen to God through His word. Read the Bible and have an in-depth study.

Read messages

You can go through church literature and publications. This should give you a fresh perspective about certain topics or it should give you something to meditate upon.

Write a journal

Writing your thoughts, prayers, and the things you struggle with can help express yourself before God. Your brain also works differently when you write something. What’s great is that you can read your past journals and be reminded of how God worked in your life.

Memorize scripture

King David tells us:

Your word I have hidden in my heart,
That I might not sin against You (Psalms 119:11). 

King David hid God’s word in his heart. In other words, he memorized and commit into his memories the words of God. This is also true with our Savior. When He faced Satan, He used Scripture to defeat the enemy.

Use a devotional

There are a lot of helpful devotionals out there. Devotionals are a great way to give structure to your study of the word of God. You can check out a list of devotionals here to get you started.

Our quiet time can be a perfect time to memorize Bible verses.

Ideally, your quiet time should be at least an hour. This will give you ample time to reconnect with God and ensure you stay connected with Him.

Have a beneficial quiet time with God

I hope this opened your eyes to the importance of having quiet time with God and how it can help you deepen your relationship with Him. Our quiet time is like an important appointment and not just an appointment to any person, but our appointment to the Great and Supreme Ruler of this vast universe. If we can keep our appointment with other people, how much more should we keep our appointment with Yahweh, our heavenly Father? We should add that to our daily schedule and do our best to keep our appointment with Him.

Remember, you spend time on things you value the most. The way you spend your time reflects your priority in life. If you value God in your life, then you would surely find a way to spend time with Him.

I know this is not easy. I, too, struggle with this. There are just so many distractions and things that can throw us off our track. However, I tell you, the struggle is all worth it. 

When you finally discover the joy of having quiet time with God, you will surely look forward to it and you will feel like your day isn’t complete if you missed your quiet time. Most importantly, the benefits you get from your quiet time will surely help you grow spiritually.

So, friends, my sincerest hope is that this message will not come to waste. I pray that you don’t just ignore this message. Do your best to have a regular quiet time with God and you’ll surely have a deeper, closer, and more intimate with our Heavenly Father.

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