We all know we should make our quiet time with God a priority in our lives. It’s something we should really try to do every day! But when you sit down for this time with God, what exactly do you do? That’s what I’m here to share with you!
Imagine you have someone in your life that you love spending time with. You love talking with them and being with them. They truly bring you happiness and joy.
But this person is absent a lot. You reach out to them and they don’t reply. You try to schedule time with them, but they keep giving excuses as to why they can’t spend time with you.
Would this relationship last? Would you be able to continue to pour into this one-sided relationship?
It would be very hard to keep this relationship alive.
That’s exactly how our relationship is with God. God is constantly wanting to spend time with us. He’s reaching out to us. He’s nudging our hearts saying, “Come be with me. Come spend time with me.”
How are you responding to that gentle nudge on your heart?
Do you keep pushing the nudge away because you’re too busy? Do you keep getting distracted with everything life throws at you?
I so understand. Life is busy. And I’m far from perfect in my time with Jesus.
But I can definitely tell a difference in the days that I connect my heart with Jesus compared to the days that I don’t. The days that I start my day and spend my mornings with him, even if it’s just 15 or 20 minutes, fills my mind with so much peace and I’m better able to handle whatever life throws at me that day.
Making Quiet Time with God a Routine
It’s my goal to spend intentional time with Jesus every morning. Again I’m not perfect, but it’s a goal I aim for every morning!
If your desire is to be more consistent in spending time with Jesus every day, then there are many different things you can do to make this a routine in your day.
I believe one of the most important things you can do is to go into your quiet time with a plan. And it needs to be simple. Complicated routines could keep you from spending time with God.
So that’s exactly what I’m going to bring to you today: My 3 step, easy quiet time routine.
What is a quiet time with God?
So first let’s start with what a quiet time actually is.
There are lots of different names this can take:
+Quiet time
+Morning time
+Spending time with God
+Time with Jesus
But it’s all the same principle.
Your quiet time with God is a time you dedicate every day to spending time with him. Digging into his word. Really getting to know him. Talking with him.
This time that you spend with him is super important in building the foundation you need in your faith to face all the hard things that come in this life. Especially if you’ve lost your child.
My Quiet Time Routine
My quiet time routine is super simple. I like to keep things easy because I believe if it’s easy, we’ll do it. If we make it too complicated by including too many steps, it would be easy to just put it off and think, “I don’t have time for all that.”
And we want to eliminate all barriers between you and your quiet time with Jesus!
I believe this method is a really good, solid quiet time routine.
>> It’s easy.
>> It doesn’t take a lot of supplies.
>> It checks all the boxes for a well-rounded quiet time.
If after reading my routine, you feel like you want to add more, you definitely can! You for sure need to make this personalized to you, but I would encourage you to just start simple. Especially if your main focus is making this a part of your daily routine.
Then as you build this into your day and it becomes a habit, you can add more as you go.
So here is my 3 step morning quiet time routine.
Step 1: Read the Bible
The first thing that I do when I sit down for my quiet time is grab my Bible study basket and pull out my Bible. But how do I read my Bible?
There are so many different ways to read and study the Bible. Honestly it depends on how much time you have to spend with Jesus in the morning. How you study and read the Bible if you only have 5 minutes will look a lot different than someone who has 30 minutes.
Pardon me while I slide a little side note in right here:
The amount of time you spend with Jesus does not matter as much as the consistency in spending time with Jesus. I’d rather you spend 5 minutes every day reading the Bible and praying, then spending one hour but only doing it once a month.
Okay, back to the regularly scheduled programming.
However long you have in that particular morning will determine the method in how you read and study the Bible. So let’s say you look at your schedule and figure out that you have 30 minutes that you can spend with Jesus every morning.
First thing I want you to do is schedule it in. Add it to your calendar just like you would an appointment. It’s that important!
For me personally I have 30 minutes that I spend with Jesus every morning.
So when I sit down to start my time with Jesus, I pull out my Bible.
Here are a few different ways you can read or study your Bible:
+ Pick a book of the Bible and read one chapter a day
+ Use the SOAP method to really focus in on one verse (You can get a FREE SOAP download here)
+ Do a topic study on something you’re struggling with (ex: fear, forgiveness, etc.)
+ Do a character study on something you want to grow in (ex: patience, love, etc.)
+ Go through a devotional book
+ Go through the guided devotional using the Bible app on your phone
What I personally do for my Bible study has changed throughout my Christian journey. But as of right now, I read one chapter a day until I’ve read through an entire book of the Bible.
If you’re new in your faith and you’re just getting started with your quiet time routine, I would suggest starting with John. I think John is a great book for you to read to really learn about Jesus. So tomorrow, just start with John 1 and read that whole chapter. Then the next day, read John 2. Super easy!
Next question you might have:
What translation of the Bible should I read?
There are so many translations out there it can be confusing. A good translation to start out with is either NIV (New International Version), NLT (New Living Translation), or ESV (English Standard Version).
If you don’t have a Bible, you can get one pretty cheap off of Amazon. Here are some affordable options for you in each of the different translations:
NIV: New International Version
NLT: New Living Translation (this is my current Bible)
ESV: English Standard Version
If you’re really on a budget, here are some very inexpensive options:
NIV: New International Version
NLT: New Living Translation
ESV: English Standard Version
I’m so thankful that there are affordable options to be able to get your own copy of the word of God! It’s so vital to our faith!
Step 2: Pray
After I’ve spent time putting God’s word in my heart, the next natural step for me is to take a moment and pray.
- You can pray about what you just read during your Bible time. If the Holy Spirit revealed something to you through the scripture, now is a great time to just ponder it and talk to God about what he showed you.
- You can pray about something that’s weighing heavy on your heart. In this grief journey there’s lots of heaviness that we carry. So if there’s something that’s really weighing on your heart or your mind, this is a great time to bring it to Jesus. Allow him to lift that heaviness off of you and experience rest in your heart.
- You can go through a book that has written prayers in it. A few books I love and have been using for 20+ years are The Power of a Praying Parent, The Power of a Praying Wife, and The Power of a Praying Woman. What the author does is takes scriptures and writes prayers from these scriptures. Then you just pray these pre-written prayers and fill in the name of whoever it is you’re praying for. I love it! And it’s really great if you’re new to prayer.
- You can use the guided prayer in the Bible app. This app takes you through a guided prayer. It’s set up like an Instagram story and you click through the different “stories” and it gives you what to pray about. Again, super helpful if you’re new to prayer and are just not sure how it all works.
Okay so I’ve read my Bible, spent some time in God’s word putting that in my heart. I’ve prayed and connected my heart with Jesus through talking to him. What is the last step of my 3 step easy quiet time routine?
Step 3: Worship
The last thing I do in my quiet time with Jesus is I worship him. I pick one worship song and just worship him.
I go into a room where I can shut the door, pull up a worship song on YouTube on my phone, I close my eyes, and just sit with him in that room. Sometimes I sing, sometimes I just sit there.
I can immediately feel his peace and his presence fill the room I’m in. It’s truly amazing.
This is one of the newer things that I’ve added into my quiet time. I don’t know why it took me so long to do this. I guess you just don’t hear about it often. Like before when I would think of quiet time, I would just think of reading my Bible and praying.
But I was listening to a sermon and he was talking about things he did in his quiet time. He said he ended his quiet time with a worship song and I was like… Why have I not done this before?!
Adding this into the end of my quiet time has literally changed my quiet time.
Having that time that is solely focusing on worshipping him and telling him he’s worthy with just you and him, it’s priceless. So if you’re not doing this I would highly, highly, highly recommend adding this.
Doing this at the end of my quiet time I feel is just the perfect way to wrap up my time with Jesus.
More Ideas for Strengthening Your Faith
So that’s my easy 3 step quiet time routine that literally changes the trajectory of my day. The times that I don’t spend my mornings with him I can tell. I walk through my day without the peace that spending time with him brings.
I only spend about 30 minutes every morning, so it won’t take a lot of time. And it’s 100% worth it!
I pray that this has encouraged you to create your own quiet time routine that will be completely personal to you and may look completely different than mine. You need to make it what your heart needs, what your spirit needs.
I know meeting with Jesus every morning will be such a blessing to you.
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