Influencers Weekly Devotional

Quiet Time

by

Rocky Fleming

“The Lord your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud singing.” Zephaniah 3:17 (ESV)

“I have finally made it to this time and place, and I can connect with the Lord on a deeper level.” Have you ever breathed those words or thoughts to yourself when you finally were able to have a “quiet time” with the Lord? They are escaping my lips as I write this. After a tremendous leadership conference in California that kept me busy, and being with our grandchildren for a visit following the conference, I have found such a place and time in a coffee cafe near their house. I had to leave their house, and the wrestling matches that become the norm to go to this place. Those things that I took a short hiatus from are wonderful, and are a gift from the Lord to this granddaddy. But, when I go too long without the close contact I experience with the Lord in my Q.T., I find myself impatient and lose the joy the moments with those children bring to me. In fact, it's not just with them, just doing life without my alone time with the Lord, makes me tend toward falling back to old tendencies of the flesh. I need time with Him so I will remember to “take up His yoke and learn from Him.” (Matthew 11:29)

Why is having a consistent quiet-time important to me? How do I see it? Honestly, I have more balance in my view of it now, because early in my adventure into daily quiet-times I became legalistic with the importance of it. I'll never forget the time my wife interrupted me when I was trying to have a quiet-time and wanted to talk, for she was having a bad day with our small children and some challenges we were having at the time. Instead of embracing the interruption as God orchestrating another agenda for me to serve my wife, I laid into her with some unkind words about her coming between God and me. I see it clearly now. She didn't come between God and me. My legalistic, performance driven, hardness of heart was coming between God and me. God revealed this to me not by the quiet-time that was interrupted by my wife, but the one that was interrupted by Him. When I connected these dots with the good quiet-time that followed, I realized that I had become a hard-hearted Pharisee with something meant to be freeing and liberating, and would enable His characteristics in me, if I understood a key point about why I have the quiet-time in the first place. The key point I was missing is mentioned in the passage from Zephaniah that I have listed above. Let's look at it: Notice a critical connection with God's ordained quiet-time for His child rather than the one we create for ourselves. What is the difference? Is it what we give to Him in our quietness before Him, or is it what He gives to us in the quietness we receive from Him? In this passage, we read that God will quiet us by His love. He will rejoice over us with gladness. He will exult over us with loud singing. Now surely we are to understand these things He does as metaphors of truth. However, we can read in them clearly that God has affection for us. He loves being with you and me. In fact, He delights in it. He is so delighted, His Spirit moves over us and in us, as He sings over us. In this action on His part, He imparts to us critical assurance of His presence. When we play our part, and calm ourselves long enough to listen to Him, and overcome the hindrances in the way of our intimacy with God, as was the case with the way I treated my wife and my perspective of quiet-times then, God is able to “quiet” us with His love. This “quieting” transforms us from a legalistic agenda for our quiet-times to love driven joy in connecting with Him. This “quieting” imparts to us not only the basic assurances we need to boldly live our life, but also the wisdom for carrying out the purpose God has given to us. This “quieting” makes us into men after God's own heart, and elevates us from the forces that drag us down, to men who mount up with wings like eagles. Yes, having a consistent quiet-time, preferably daily, is like eating life sustaining food for me. However, sometimes the distractions I am dealing with keep me from being able to get alone with the Lord and eat from the feast, and I have to allow the spiritual nutrition I received from the last one to sustain me for a while. Therefore, I don't worry and stew over missing a Q.T. as I did when I was legalistic about them, for missing some is going to happen. But, when I begin to show signs of the flesh creeping into my life, I know I need time with the Lord, and it needs to be a priority to go there. Believe me when I say this to you; everyone around my life needs for me to go there, and they know the difference in the man who comes from the Inner Chamber, and the one who needs to be abiding in that place. As a mentor, I encourage men toward an intimate, abiding relationship with God. I will say clearly that my ability to effectively mentor a man is directly related to my own quality time alone with God. I lead men to understand this critical connection with God by my own dependence and priority in going there. Otherwise, I would be an inauthentic representative of this truth, along with missing the power to influence other men. The truth is, I encourage a man to journey to this place with Christ for I know it will be life changing for him, and is deep down a core need that exists within him, whether he knows it or not. It is easy for me to make this connection, for with my own life as an example, I know a man who went into the Inner Chamber, and the one who emerged from it. If God can do with this man what He has done, and with what He had to work with, I know that He can help any man who walks this earth, no matter where he lives or what his circumstances, to become a man after His own heart. That is what happens when God “quiets us with His love.” We become like Him. Download file