Quiet Time (2)

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Helps to concentrate in prayer

To pray aloud was always the custom of Luther, and also of David (Psalm 55:17). That wasn’t because they wanted to be heard, but because they didn’t want to hear the distractions within and without. Hearing our own voice helps us to concentrate tremendously, even if it is only a whispering.

While traveling for many hours in an airplane, I always found it very difficult to concentrate while praying. The one was telling about his cruise and the other about how good the food is in a certain restaurant. It was in those circumstances I learned the value of writing my prayer. At first I felt very uncomfortable with this practice, until one day I was struck by the fact that the Bible is full of written prayers, especially the book of Psalms. Whenever you find your mind so fleeting that you don’t even know what you prayed when you say “Amen,” try putting your prayer thoughts on paper.

Journals

Many of our forefathers kept journals. Some have been published after their death, for example, those of Thomas Boston, Robert M’Cheyne, and Andrew Bonar. The reason they kept these journals was not because they intended to publish them, but to help them in their quiet time. Among other things, they meditated about what they had read by writing in their journals. They expressed in writing how they felt and with what they struggled. Often you will find prayers in their journal entries which arose while they wrote. This practice is biblical, for also David often spoke to himself and wrote it down. Study for yourself Psalms 42 and 77. It is sometimes amazing what answer comes upon paper when you ask yourself a question regarding that which you read or thought and seek to answer it while writing.

Use all the means of grace

In our quiet time we usually read and pray. How about singing? Paul wrote to the Ephesians, “Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord” (Ephesians 5:19). Luther stated that singing chases the devil away. That is precisely the effect the playing (and perhaps the singing) of David had on the evil spirit in King Saul.

Often we read about meditation, a practice well-nigh lost in our age of hurry. What is meditation? It is “spiritually chewing” the Word of God. Chewing is to eating what meditation is to reading. How is a text of the Bible to be “chewed”? It is by meditating over what you read. Meditation is not just “sitting and staring,” but meditation is asking questions about that which you have read. It is the searching of God’s message in what you read. How often don’t we read a chapter without knowing what message God has for us in that chapter.

Another means of grace which has greatly, if not completely, fallen into disuse is fasting. The Scriptures abound with references to the practice of fasting. It squarely condemns fasting to merit thereby (Isaiah 58), but often commends the practice of it by mentioning it in the lives of various blessed persons and during critical events in the Bible. In Luke 2 we read of Anna, a prophetess, who “departed not from the temple, but served God with fastings and prayers night and day.” Please “chew” this portion for a moment with me. Notice that the Spirit mentions her fastings first, and her prayers second. What does the Holy Spirit have to say here? Why is it in this order? Notice also that she used these means night and day, which simply means continually. It was as common in her life as prayer must have been. (For more extensive explanations on fasting, meditation, and singing, see Brakel’s book mentioned earlier: chapters 75, 78, and 79, respectively.)

Lastly, another means of grace is self-examination. Luther was in the practice of meditating over each of the Ten Commandments. Oh, what a humbling self-examination if, on our knees before the Lord, we carefully meditate about each commandment, using the Heidelberg Catechism as our guide and the Lord Jesus as our example. Regarding self-examination, Matthew Henry wrote, “Do it often and continually. Ask the Spirit to guide you and make you honest before Him. Examine your motives, feelings, desires, appetite, and thoughts. Review your actions. Look at how you spent your day and whether you were a good steward of all your talents, including your time.”

Variety in reading

Let Watson’s guideline be ours when it comes to reading. “Read the one Book many times and many books one time.” Seek to read, next to your solid Bible, other good books. Don’t limit yourself to one author or one particular group of authors. Some read only Baptist authors, or only Puritans, or only “old” forefathers, or only more recent forefathers, etc. However, we should seek to read a variety of materials from a variety of periods of church history. In writing the Bible, God used many different authors spanning many different periods of time, yet all were inspired by the Spirit. So the Spirit also uses all the uninspired authors throughout all the ages with their varied emphases. Philpot likens God’s servants to planets. Each has his own established orbit, either close or far away from the spiritual Sun of Righteousness. The one who is closer receives much more (spiritual) light than the one farther away. Yet each has his function and place in God’s spiritual universe. Let us seek to learn from all and to idolize none.

Decree and means

“Except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it” (Psalm 127:1). One plows, the other sows, but God alone must give the increase. Yet let us not presume to tempt God by separating what God in His good pleasure has most intimately joined together. God decreed to reach His end through the use of the means of grace. We have no difficulty applying this truth to our natural lives, but we fail miserably when it comes to our spiritual lives. Our fathers concluded the marvelous third and fourth heads of the Canons of Dordt (in which they spoke about the regeneration of a dead sinner) with these words, “As the almighty operation of God, whereby He prolongs [produces] and supports this our natural life, does not exclude, but requires the use of means, by which God of His infinite mercy and goodness hath chosen to exert His influence, so also the beforementioned supernatural operation of God, by which we are regenerated, in no wise excludes, or subverts the use of the gospel, which the most wise God has ordained to be the seed of regeneration, and food of the soul.”

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