March 16

Okay, that's more like it. Six days from the last post. If you recall, I gave myself permission to write. Now I'm using it.

Two updates. Rhonda Dering, whom many of you know, went home last week. Sometimes I am conflicted about how to pray, but in her case, it became obvious that God was not going to prolong her time on earth. And so I prayed that she would have grace to cross the river. God answered that prayer, and today she is with Jesus, seeing unimaginable sights. Her funeral is Saturday, March 21.

The other update has to do with my brother-in-law, Paul Rudy, a minister in southeastern Wisconsin. I and a lot of other people prayed very hard for him during his surgery last Friday, and it appears God has given us the answer we were looking for, though we won't know for sure until the pathology reports come back this week. He was full of quips afterwards. When my sister told him they had to take part of his colon along with everything else, he said "Well, now I've got a semi-colon."

One more update. It does look as though God is working out the schedule change conundrum I referred to last week, where I was getting shortchanged by not being able to take a nap in the morning. Last week I really did do better on getting by with, say, nine hours sleep at night and no naps. It is problematical, though, when you have to pee four times a night, which I do, because if your mind runs off on some tangent when you lie back down, you might not go back to sleep. That actually happened, Friday night, costing me at least four hours sleep, and impacting me right into Sunday. (It was a little embarrassing to have to tell my pastor that I fell asleep during his sermon and could he please repeat the main points, but retrieving one of his sermons is worth some embarrassment.)

Now for a little more from the quiet time "research lab." As you might remember, a few months ago on this blog I posted a devotional I had written about quiet times in which I suggested we stop having them. Actually, I suggested we stop having them just to show off. I didn't really mean we shouldn't have quiet time. After all, God's children need to grow, and you won't grow if you don't eat.

But even if we are committed to "doing" time with God for the right reasons, as I mentioned last week, it's still very easy to slip back into the wrong motivation. That is part of our struggle as humans. Satan is always sliding that noxious vapor of self-righteousness under our bedroom door, and we need the gas mask of the gospel to filter out his poison.

But the more you humbly and conscientiously persist at quiet time, the more things begin to change. God slowly but consistently forms your character with every step you take in the right direction, and eventually you find yourself playing in a higher league. You move closer to the place where you actually enjoy getting out of bed because you know whom you'll find when you do get your lazy bones moving--none other than God himself.

In my case, when I first consciously dedicated myself to quiet time, I would begin by dressing, then going downstairs and doing a couple of little things that really needed doing, i.e., feeding the dogs and changing the cat litter box. Then I would sit down and read my Bible. But by that point, to use Will Rogers' memorable phrase, the "new had already gotten rubbed off" the day, and though I still could get caught up in the Biblical narrative, by the time I got around to praying, things were getting a little arid.

So now I simply drop to my knees the minute I get out of bed. I've got a prayer list I keep on my bedstand, and moving that the two feet to my bed is all I've got to do to start. After fifteen minutes of praying, it's time to do the chores, quickly; and then I read. That's my routine, anyway. I'm sure yours might be different.

All this, by the way, from a man who is definitely not a morning person. But I do quiet time first thing in the morning for one simple reason--my mind is still uncluttered. The minute you eat breakfast and start thinking about what you have to do next, the day roars into your brain like a mile-long Union Pacific freight train. And then, of course, any hope of having quiet time is splattered like a dead bug all over the windshield of the locomotive.

So there you have it--our weekly "Quiet Time Research Lab 101." Let me know if you've got some research you'd like to share with me. Have a good week!