You know
I know of no better way to start my day
Slowly and calmly than with a quiet time with God if I start rushed I'm going to stay rushed
If I start my day in a hurry, I'm gonna spend my day in a hurry, but if I start my day with God
I'm gonna spend my day with God. I have a choice to make
if I start my day with God
He stays in the front of my mind all day. It's like a continuing conversation
That gets started it lets God set the agenda
It lets him set the the pace it puts God in control if I start just by giving the
first part of my day
To him somebody once said that God is your commander-in-chief
So don't forget your daily briefing
Meditation is the most important aspect of Prayer
Most of you never meditate
Never
You talk too much in prayer
You never hear from God while you're talking
And 99% of your prayer is you talking
And when you finish talking as far as your concerned the exercise is over so you leave
Let me tell you your dream is never revealed to you while you're talking
We think prayer is talking
When you go to prayer again, please pray 10 minutes and sit for 60
And just listen you'll be amazed how loud he speaks. Finally he gets to talk
Prayer is you talking
Meditation is you listening
Suppose you, and I have a conversation
You come to see me
ask for some things you tell me everything and then don't wait for me to even tell you what I want to do you just leave
That's stupid isn't it we do it to God all the time
God gonna say wait, don't go. I didn't answer you yet. Were you going and you're gone
You think you already did your prayer time, see
And you keep asking God, how come I'm not hearing from you
How come I'm not getting any direction from you God saying because you don't wait for the directions
You give me instructions
A forest is not a head of the seed
It's in the seed. Your future is in you been there all along but there's too much noise
Soon as you get home click remote on. In the car boom, boom , boom
God is saying man, this is a lot of noise for the last 50 years. I can't even get to this person
How did God talk to Abraham. God said leave your home
Let's talk in the mountain
See the reason why you can't discover your even your what your born to do is because
You don't even make time to discover it
Because it is not so important what we say to God
as it is what God says to us
Sometimes I think there's so much noise around us that we cannot hear God
And how can we walk with a God that we cannot hear? We must hear from him
He's our navigational system
The way the
Navigational system operates in the car. That's the way God wants to operate in your life
What I love about my system is even when you do something dumb and make a wrong turn it recalibrates and says turn
Around make a u-turn and go back
Sometimes we need God to tell us when we've made a wrong turn
Now how to make a u-turn and get back on track and go where we need to go
but how can he talk to us when the first thing we do is grab the
telephone and we start talking all kinds of people about what we're going through and what's happening in our lives and what's going on with
Our children and what's going on with our marriage and we're watching TV and we're listen to music and all the while God
is saying if you cut all that stuff off for a minute. I want to talk to you.
I want to talk to you. I want to speak to you. I want to show you how to get through this season in your life
This moment in your destiny this present danger that you face. He said I can navigate you through it just like that
Time with God quiet time
Is actually God's idea
Because if God didn't want to speak to you
Then he wouldn't have given us his word
He wouldn't have given us the Bible. If God didn't want to hear from you. Then he wouldn't invite you to pray.
I mean, why would God invite you to come into his presence if he didn't want to be in yours
He loves you
And He's very communicative. God is a chatterbox
He wants to talk to you
He has something to say to you every day in his word and he wants to hear from you every day in prayer
He's highly relational
So if I'm gonna set time aside in the morning to have my quiet time with God just a few minutes
Well, what does that look like?
How do I actually do a quiet time?
The first rule in this setting time aside for a quiet time
Is slow down
slow down and that probably sounds obvious, but sometimes
Obvious things are not so obvious. You have to slow down because God is never in a hurry
And you can't hear God's voice if you're just rushing all the time
You have to slow down to hear what he wants to say to you
That's why you have to get up a little bit earlier
So you're not just rushing into your day and you don't have time so you just find a quiet place
You grab your Bible maybe a journal get a cup of coffee
Or tea or whatever you want in the morning and just go spend a few minutes with the Lord
Here's what Jesus said about it in Matthew 6. He said here's what I want you to do
Just find a quiet secluded place
So you won't be tempted to roleplay before God. You're not gonna try to put on airs or impress anybody
He says just be there as simply and honestly as you can manage and the focus
will shift from you to God
And you will begin to sense his grace now
Since a quiet time is a conversation with God
Then you should probably let God start the conversation because this may be news to some of you. He is God and you are not
So you probably ought to start by letting him start the conversation. You don't start with an hour of prayer
You don't start by telling him what's on your mind
Start with just a moment of prayer
A simple moment that says Lord here I am
I'm ready. I want to hear from you today. Would you just open my eyes
Open my ears
Open my heart to whatever it is you want to say. See everybody thinks that hearing God's voice is this once-in-a-lifetime
opportunity and it's this every once in a while He only talks you in special occasions. That's not true. He's talking to you every day
He wants to talk to you every single day. Look at the scripture in Isaiah
50 says this he awakens me morning by morning. He awakens my ear to listen as a disciple
God's trying to talk to you every single day
You just have to listen
You just have to listen either you don't
know his voice
Or you are too busy to listen
See don't let the busy of your day drowned out the voice of your God
Let me tell you some are busy. BUSY. Being under Satan's yoke
Busy busyness will rob you of the ability to hear your God
Because we like to fill up our day with all these things to do and before you know it you go days weeks sometimes
even months and years without hearing God's voice and the enemy will use
busy to keep you from God doing God's will and hearing his voice
See margin is the opposite of busy
Margin says I'm gonna value my quiet time with God. It's the most important part of my day. So that's where I'm gonna
Invest my time
You want to start your day off with quiet time, but let's be a little honest some of us aren't morning people
Some of us ain't morning people. Okay, I get it
I'm not really a morning person either so some of us has to get real creative about our quiet time for some
Maybe it's just turning off the radio on the way to work so you can spend a few time a few minutes of silence with
God
Maybe it's the first 15 minutes of your workday before you do anything else. I'm gonna spend time just listening and praying
or maybe at lunchtime you eat your food a little bit faster for 15 minutes
and spend the rest of your time
with God
Or maybe at night
instead of binge watching six episodes on Netflix
You watch five and use that last hour to spend some time with God
Whatever it is, that's not the point. The point is make sure you value margin enough to protect your quiet time with God
Because God absolutely wants to speak to you. He loves speaking to you
I don't know what trouble you may be facing or pain
you may be feeling but I do know this you need to hear God's voice
And the way you're gonna hear God's voice is if you slow down and listen