Make it your own.

Before diving into your quiet time with Jesus, you will need to make sure that you have all the things you need, so you can get the most out of your time with Jesus. There is nothing worse than getting comfortable and deep in prayer only to hear the Lord speak and realize that you have nothing to write what He is saying down on.

I am unsure how the prophets did it before having compact notebooks. How did David write out long Psalms while he was tending sheep without a notebook? Maybe they had less on their mind, quieter minds and therefore it was easier to remember what God had said. I am not entirely sure, but I know that if I don’t write things down, I will forget them five minutes later. So, I always make sure I have what I need before I start.

The most important thing to remember is this time is for you and Jesus. It is a time to spend time worshipping God through prayer. It is a time to connect to your savior and friend. What is most important is not what you use to journal, or how creative or pretty your journal is, but that you are honest and vulnerable with God.

Keeping that in mind, I am going to let you into my routine. This is what works for me. I feel led to share it so that you can take what I have learned and use it to create a routine that works for you wherever you are in your journey with God.

Materials

First thing in the morning I start my tea brewing and I go and collect the materials needed to spend time with God. After stumbling around for a few minutes, collecting all my needed items, my tea is ready, and I am awake enough to begin my study.

It is important to me to make sure I have everything you need before you begin, so I’m not interrupting my time with God. He needs to be my priority, not where you left I highlighters.

I have grown to absolutely love my faith journals. Not only are they a creative way to spend time with God and to commit things to memory, but they are also an amazing reminder of where I have been and how far God has brought me in my journey with Him. This practice has helped cultivate such a grateful heart in me. If you have not tried one, I recommend buying a journal and giving it a try. Feel free to check out my Pinterest and the many other amazing creators’ boards for inspiration and tips.

Environment

My surroundings play a huge part in curating my moods. I am an emotional person (or so I have been told multiple times). It is the way God has made me and with Him, this does not have to be a bad thing, but it means that small details can often have a great effect on my feelings and how much I can get out of an experience. Knowing this about myself I always work hard to make my environment a stress-free, safe, and relaxing place so I am not distracted and my heart is in a place where it is receptive to what God is saying.

When I was trying to piece together what God wanted me to write about, I became frustrated and overwhelmed. I felt like I had nothing to offer my readers. I decided that I would take a break from trying to write and just listen to my praise and worship list on YouTube. As I sat on the couch listening to my favorite songs I felt God talk to my heart. Reassuring me that He has created me and molded me for the purpose he had for me. I felt so encouraged that I was able to come up with nine new post ideas that evening.

One thing that helps me to create a mood of prayer and worship is soft hymns, instrumental or praise, and worship music. It helps me to relax and place my mind on God and relax in His presence. The author of Psalms 100 most accurately describes how I aim to begin my time with the Lord when he says. “Enter his gates with thanksgiving go into his courts with praise. Give thanks to him and praise his name.” (Psalms100:4) I encourage you to look up your favorite praise and worship music and try it as a way to get your mind focused on Jesus before you start your prayer and devotional time.

Attitude.

The way we approach God is far more important than what we bring with us or where we are. For a heart of prayer and worship can be cultivated anywhere in any circumstance. Paul teaches us this one of the many times he was in prison. In the book of Acts, Paul and Silas, were prison for commanding a demon out of a slave girl, earlier that day. That night they found themselves in prison,. their answer to this crisis, praying and singing hymns.

 “Around midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing Hymns to God and the other prisoners were listening.” (Acts 16:25)

They did not care they were in the darkest part of the prison, a place that was damp and smelly. They had been “beaten severely” (acts 16:23), yet they prayed and sang.

This is important for us to remember. No matter what is going on around us, we can always cry out to God in prayers and singing. While it is great to have all the things that we need, or for things to be convenient. Nothing can be more important than spending time with Jesus. Our ability to pray and sing in every situation will grow as we pursue the Lord. Take small steps of faith and Jesus will show you the way.

King David wrote “Your word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path.” (Psalms 119:105)

As you read God’s word and pray you will be able to discern His voice from other sounds around you. That is why reading God’s word and praying with a good attitude is so important. This is our connection to God, the one who orders our steps, knows our sins, and loves us anyway. We need to make sure there is nothing that is coming between us and God so we can hear His clear directions.

In Matthew, the author tells us “If you are presenting a sacrifice at the altar in the temple and you suddenly remember that someone has something against you, leave your sacrifice there at the altar and go and be reconciled to that person. Then come back and offer your sacrifice to God.” (Matthew 5:23-24).

Broken relationships and bad attitudes keep us disconnected from God. If we are disconnected we can not hear Him speak.

If you are holding on to unforgiveness or resentment, go to Jesus and repent, do all you can to make the relationship right again. A bonus is that you will feel so much better after letting the negativity go, you’ll have more to be thankful for which will increase your receptiveness to what God has to say.

Expect God to Speak

The author of Psalms 119 says “May all who fear you find me a cause for joy for I have put my hope in your word” (Psalms 119:74)

The concordance in the back of my Application Study Bible defines hope as “ confident trust with the expectation of fulfillment.” The author of the Psalms is saying that he trusts God’s word and expects God to fulfill His promises.

We too can live with this same trust in God when we pray. As we expect God’s answers, we will begin to see them, even if they do not look the way we thought they might. We are more likely to recognize God’s hand moving in our lives if we are expecting him to move, to work in our lives.

Seeing God’s answers playing out in our lives creates gratitude. I do not know about you, but when I see God work in a situation that has been tough for me, I am overwhelmed by gratefulness. The more that I see God working the more my trust and faith in Him grow and the more I come running back to him over and over.

In the gospel of John Jesus tells us “If can ask for anything in my name, and I will do it, so that the son can bring glory to the father.” (John 14:13)

As we get to Know God better, drawing closer to him through prayer and Bible study we will know better what God wants, and what will bring him glory. As we learn we will begin to ask for what God wants, and we will never be disappointed when we ask for the things that bring God glory. Knowing that when I ask with a right heart, that God will hear me and act. That brings me such joy and peace.

When I married my husband, I was a major prodigal child. I was running away from everything that I had been taught in my youth. My husband was also far from Jesus at the time. A year into our marriage I had the experience with Jesus that called me back into the arms of my savior, father, and friend. My husband on the other hand has had a much slower awakening to God.

I spent and still spend so many nights praying for my husband, his faith, and his soul. When I started expecting God to change not only my husband’s heart, but mine as well, that is when I began to see God really move. Before I began expecting and looking for God’s answers to my prayers, I often thought that nothing was changing, because they were small changes at first and I was not looking for them.

Over the last year, I have seen a true change not just in myself but also in my husband and our marriage. We are kinder to each other and others. I have seen my husband start to take an interest in a relationship with Jesus. He started attending church with me and often asked questions about the Bible. It has been so encouraging to see his heart turn toward Jesus.

I don’t think that God was not moving before, but that I did not recognize it because I didn’t expect to see it. Thinking about this personal example reminded me of a study I saw in psychology class.

Psychology, indeed, does reflect this truth and why wouldn’t it; God is the one who created our minds after all. In this study, a facilitator showed a group of students a video of people passing a basketball around a court and asked them to count how many times the basketball was passed. After the video, the facilitator asked the students how many gorillas they saw.

No one saw a gorilla, but if you remember the video there was indeed a man in a gorilla suit running around in the background. No one saw it because they were too busy counting how many times the ball was passed.

If we are so busy seeing all that is wrong and not looking for What God is doing, we will miss what God is doing. If we miss what God is doing it is easy to think God is not working. With this mindset not only do we miss the blessings God has for us, but we can also develop a bad attitude that will further disconnect us from God, as we mentioned previously. It can be a vicious cycle, but we have the ability, with God’s help, to change this. To disrupt the cycle and foster a heart of expectation and gratefulness.

Things to Ponder

After gathering your material, setting up your environment, attuning your heart to God, and waiting to hear him, you are ready to engage with Jesus. It is important that we make sure that we give Jesus our best and I have found the only way to be your best is to put time and effort into being prepared. There are many different methods and you may have to try several before find what works for you but don’t give up, Jesus is always worth it.

In next week’s post, we will explore how to create consistency in your prayer time, living a life of prayer. We’ll also talk about endurance. How to keep praying when God’s response takes longer to come.

In this upcoming week, I challenge you to start a faith journal if you haven’t already and add worship music to your routine. Sometimes small changes can help us focus on what is really important and make the biggest impact.

I pray that God is using my words to touch your heart and encourage you to have a more intimate relationship with our Lord, Jesus Christ. I would love to connect with my readers, so feel free to send me your stories, questions, and comments at emilyb@moreofjesusplease.com or comment in the comment section below.

This week I encourage you to look at your prayer time routine and ask yourself these questions:

• Do I have unforgiveness in my heart? Are there other things in my life that are keeping me disconnected from Jesus?

• What are some steps I can take to help cultivate an environment of prayer and worship in my everyday life?

• What are some ways God has answered prayer in my life previously?