Plan Not to Fail In Your Quiet Time
The saying goes, “Those who fail to plan, plan to fail.” And I can agree with that in general.
Not being one who has every moment of my life (or even my week) planned out gives me room to breathe and allow the Spirit to bring “divine interruptions” into my life that he sees as necessary. I like to live somewhere close to the center of that popular saying, somewhere closer to “those who fail to plan, on the most important things, plan to fail.”
PLAN NOT TO FAIL
This is very important with regard to our discipleship. We often fail to account for the effort we are called to exert in growing in grace. We don’t lay out a plan or a course for our lives, and so instead of developing the spiritual muscles for growth in God or a mind that is in sync with the mind of God, we just allow ourselves to drift along, hoping we’ll eventually get to the spiritual maturity we know we should be pursuing.
John Mark Comer, in his recent book The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry, didn’t pull any his punches on my heart when he writes,
The noise of the modern world makes us deaf to the voice of God, drowning out the one input we most need. I mean, how do we have any kind of spiritual life at all if we can’t pay attention longer than a goldfish? How do you pray, read the Scriptures, sit under a teaching at church, or rest well on the Sabbath when every chance you get, you reach for the dopamine dispenser that is your phone?
A bit later he comments on the solution to that problem—silence and solitude. Or as he puts it, a “quiet time”:
I grew up in a church tradition where we started our days with a quiet time. At the very beginning of our days, we would set aside a chunk of time to do Jesusy stuff. Usually there was coffee involved. Normally we read the Bible. Asked God to do some things in our lives. Confessed our screwups, our needs, our aches. Sometimes we just sat there. Alone. In the quiet. With God. And our souls.
John Mark’s observations are more than helpful—they are absolutely right. But if you’re anything like me, setting out into this world of the “quiet time” with God isn’t going to go well unless I’ve got a plan for it.
What I need is a plan to execute, a map to make sure I cover the right terrain of God’s Word so that the daily time of silence and solitude with the Lord accomplishes what I’ve intended.
A PLAN FOR 2020
I want to commend that you make or find a Bible reading plan for 2020. Find a rhythm and resource that will assist you in listening to and meditating on the Word of the Lord during the next year. Making a plan at least gets a direction in front of you for reading and praying. It gives you a trajectory to plod and pray and grow.
Justin Taylor at The Gospel Coalition has compiled a helpful "FAQ" of reading plans and locations to download or print them. Go for it! Find one and use it. Another helpful resource, for those who are technologically inclined is the YouVersion Bible app. There are all kinds of different reading plans included in this app, ranging from a few weeks, to a month, to all year. Again, pick a plan and set a course for the year ahead. One of my recent favorites is the Bible Reading Plans that the Dwell app offers. There are a multitude of choices.
Personally, I get a journaling Bible each year and a new annual planner or journal (check out Baron Fig’s Planner 2020 notebooks). On the monthly view page of the calendar I write all the passages I’ll be reading for each day, and then on the weekly-view pages, I’ll be able to journal a brief prayer and meditation for that day. This planner serves as the checklist for me. When I couple this with an ESV Journaling Bible, I get additional space to write notes, reflect, and pray through the Psalms (I use the “Adore/Admit/Aspire” method Timothy Keller suggests in his book Prayer).
Here’s the main point: Make a plan. Make it now. Make it before January 1st sneaks up on you and you’re left flat-footed, wondering what you’re going to do this next year. If you’re a journal junkie like me, go ahead and get the notebook all set up. Plan out the month of January.
Whatever it is, put some effort into planning and preparing so that you can enjoy the discipline of the quiet time well. Make a plan so don’t fail but instead flourish and thrive in your time with the Lord this next year.
GIVEAWAY: ESV NEW TESTAMENT SCRIPTURE JOURNAL HARDCOVER SET
With Christmas just around the corner, and to encourage your planning, our friends at Crossway have made available one set of the ESV New Testament Scripture Journal Hardcover edition. Between now and Friday December 20th, we’re inviting you to sign up for our weekly newsletter, share this post, and give us a “like” on Facebook to enter.
The set includes nineteen durable hardcover journals containing the entirety of individual books of the New Testament with lightly lined blank pages opposite each page of Bible text.
GCD has an exciting year ahead in 2020 to press forward in our purpose to “cultivate writers and resources that make, mature, and multiply disciples of Jesus.” And we’re eager to engage you in growing in Christ this next year.
Let’s plan to grow in Jesus, so that we don’t fail to miss out on the things he wants to say and show us in 2020.
Jeremy Writebol is the lead campus pastor of Woodside Bible Church in Plymouth, MI and the Executive Director of Gospel-Centered Discipleship. He is the author of everPresent: How the Gospel Relocates Us in The Present and a contributing author to several other publications. He writes personally at jwritebol.net.