Stop Creating. Start Discovering: How We Complicate Our Quiet Time...

A Heart Refined with Rachel Menard
4 days ago
3 min read

I came into my quiet time this morning with almost a noble declaration in my spirit: I'm just going to pray-no study, just pray.

I kept trying, as though I had the power to move the Holy Spirit (LOL), but I kept hitting a brick wall. So, I started studying, and wouldn't you know it, the prayers and praise just started flowing.

Praise God for His Word, because I would surely settle for my limitations.

I just started a deep study of the Book of Acts, and as I sit here this morning, finally understanding that my best efforts will NEVER hold a candle to God's Word that separates me from myself (Heb 4:12; Ps 119:17), I think about Acts 1…

Think about when they saw Jesus ascend into Heaven. It says they stood there gazing when two men in white robes asked them why they kept looking. With angelic confidence, they said that Jesus was going to come back.

I had a thought I’ve never had before. Go back to Scripture, where the women came to care for Jesus' body in the tomb, and the angel said, “Why are you looking for the living among the dead?” (Luke 24:5). 

First, the women needed to look for their Lord...alive and well!!! Second, the disciples needed to trust that He would return. So they needed to move on and go about the Father’s business…and so do we.

It made me think how often we ruminate on things that are dead when we should be seeking life in Jesus…OR even how we call on the return of Jesus in a self-pitiful way.  

Do we say “come Jesus come” out of selfishness, OR

out of worship for our coming King who will claim his bride and crush evil?!

I was also thinking about how the Lord keeps telling me to do the next thing in front of me, not to try to create anything, but to wait in expectation. Back to Acts….

Jesus had already said that the Holy Spirit would come, but in Chapter 1, He had not yet. So there had to be so much doubt and confusion with these huge unknowns in front of them. They could only do what was next. So, it says:

They devoted themselves to PRAYER.
They got together to work through what had been done, discussing David's words from the Old Testament. They also included the horrible things Judas did.
Then, they took care of the business of replacing him with Matthias.

I imagine women sweeping and making food, and children playing, having only a small clue how serious and wonderful all that has happened around them is. I imagine the collision of fear and faith in their minds and bodies!

It’s neat to go into the corners of your mind and heart to consider how you would have lived that out… and then, of course, how we get to live that out today, waiting on the Holy Spirit. We need not create… simply wait.

Oh, how we complicate things.

Could it be, dear friends, that we are complicating our walk with the Lord, beginning with our quiet time? Could it be that the Lord is not asking you to create anything, but to discover Him? Could it be that every other thing -- your prayer life, your next step(s), your peace, your mental health, etc. -- will all flow from that spacious place of glorious uncovering found in the perfect Word of God?