Wake Up Your Time With the Lord

My college minister sent this out to all of us, and I wanted to pass it along. During the summer, and after awhile of the same quiet time daily, it can get monotonous. This article from Discipleship Journal's website gives some fun and new ways to change your quiet time. Time with the Lord is important, and we should love it. He loves it when we spend time with Him. I hope you find a way that works for you. Enjoy!


20 Ways To Wake Up Your Quiet Time
Pam Farrel

Behind closed doors, many of us yawn through our quiet times. Somehow, our routine time with God slowly and quietly degenerates into a boring, predictable rut. As spiritual cataracts grow over our sleepy eyes, we may grow disinterested and frustrated. Such seasons demand a fresh view of the Creator. Like any good relationship, quiet times with God need a little variety. Instead of rolling over and hitting the snooze button, try one of these ideas for your next quiet time.

1. WRITE A LETTER TO GOD about your life. Give it to a friend to hack mail to you in three months. In the letter, talk to God about the areas of your life that are bothering you. Write about how you'd like to grow and what attribute of His you'd like to see more clearly.

2. WRITE OUT AND PERSONALIZE Scripture by inserting your name into promises relevant to your life or current struggles. For example, I would personalize Ps. 84:11 in this way: "No good thing does God withhold from Pam when she walks uprightly." Many of the Bible's promises come to life and seem more powerful and relevant when personalized in this way Spend some time meditating and praying over verses that you personalize. I once copied a set of verses and strung them together as a personalized love letter from God's heart to my own. I have it framed and hanging in my room. Those personalized verses help me keep a trig view of God.

3. GO ON A PRAISE WALK. Thank God for everything you see. Take the opportunity to look closely at God's creation, praising Him for His creativity and the beauty of the world He's crafted. After hiking for a while, find a quiet spot to read one of the many psalms that describe His creation. Isaiah 40 and Genesis 1 are two other chapters that will help you focus your heart and mind on God's creative character.

4. READ THROUGH THE BIBLE, mark it up, and give it as a gift to a child. If you begin early, you can plan to give the Bible as a gift to your child before an important transition, such as when he or she enters high school, leaves home, enters college, or gets married. Try to picture God through his or her eyes. With that season of life in mind, mark verses you think will help your child see and trust God in the transition to come. You might also make notes in the margin to help guide and direct the child's thinking about a passage or explain how the passage is relevant to this stage of life.

5. SPEND YOUR ENTIRE TIME WITH GOD SINGING and praising Him. Church hymnals and books of choruses are great resources to enliven your quiet time with personal worship. You might even try creating a song of your own!

6. DANCE BEFORE THE LORD like David, who danced "with all his might" (2 Sam. 6:14). David's dancing was a heartfelt and spontaneous expression of rejoicing. So put on your favorite hymn or praise song, and dance away. Interpretive dance is a wonderful way to express your heart and soul in praise before God. If you enjoy Jewish folk dancing, ballet, or some other kind of dance, dedicate your talent to God.

7. WRITE DOWN EVERY SIN that continues to haunt you. Then write 1 Jn. 1:9 over each sin. Destroy the list—God has. This is a strong visual reminder of how God blots out your sin.

8. WRITE OUT a Phil. 4:8 list. What is lovely to you, worthy of praise, excellent, etc.? Hang the list in a place where you tend to be grumpy, such as above the washer and dryer or on the dashboard of your car for that frustrating commute!

9. PRAY IN A POSTURE you don't normally use. Try praying on your knees, prone, or standing with your face to the heavens and your hands raised in worship. It's amazing how simply changing your posture before God can change your attitude and help you experience Him in new ways.

10. READ A DIFFERENT TRANSLATION of the Bible. You might consider purchasing a Bible that has several translations in parallel. Reading a new translation or comparing different ones can stimulate new insights into Scripture. If you've used and marked up one particular Bible for many years, reading a different Bible will enable you to see the Word with new vision. Because your eyes will not be drawn to notes and highlighted passages from previous study or devotional reading, the Scriptures will feel as beautiful and inviting as a fresh snowfall on a crisp winter morn.

11. PRAISE JESUS FROM A TO Z. For example, "Jesus, You are amazing ... Jesus, You are beautiful...." This activity will challenge you to think deeply about who Jesus is and why you love and serve Him. As you praise Jesus using each letter of the alphabet, spend some time meditating on each word you use to describe Him. Thinking deeply about Him is more important than racing through each letter of the alphabet as fast as you can.

12. WRITE OUT YOUR PRAYERS TO JESUS. You might write them in a journal, or purchase special stationery for these precious letters, as you might do if you were sending a letter to someone you have fallen deeply in love with. At the end of the letter, sign your name, just as you would a normal letter. Something powerful and deeply intimate happens when you record your thoughts and prayers in a letter to Jesus.

13. MAKE A LIST of the hurts and needs in your life. As you come to a verse that shows how God can meet that need, write it down next to that need. Like the letters mentioned above, you can do this in your journal, or separately. You might even create a journal that records only your needs and relevant Scriptures. As you do this, you create your own book of God's promises!

14. REREAD THE NOTES OF THE SERMON from the previous week. If your pastor is doing a series and you know what Scriptures he'll be addressing next, read ahead in the passage to be covered next Sunday. This will prepare you to think more deeply and listen better during the next sermon, as well as helping you remember and apply truth. Find a verse in the text that has helped you grow, and write a note to your pastor thanking him for his sermon and insight on the passage.

15. READ YOUR FAVORITE HYMN. Spend some time meditating about each of the hymn's verses and its overall message. Find the passage in the Bible that the hymn was based upon, and think about how the hymn describes and reflects that truth. Spend some time researching how and why the hymn was composed. What were the circumstances? Your pastor or worship leader might know about a particular hymn's origin. Your Christian bookstore may also carry books that detail the history of certain hymns. If you're able to locate such information, think about how the hymn reflects the author's response to God during his or her circumstances.

16. SPEND A PERIOD OF TIME FASTING from food, TV, or a hobby to spend more time with God. If you're able, combine your fast with a day at a quiet retreat center, the beach, the mountains, or even tucked away in a library to reflect upon God's Word and His hand in your life.

17. HAVE A QUIET TIME WITH ONE OF YOUR CHILDREN or grandchildren. This would probably include reading a passage from the Bible out loud. You can give children a powerful peek into your relationship with Christ by inviting them to share your regular time with God. As you ask them questions about what they see in the passage, you'll teach them to think more deeply about God's Word. Their responses and observations may surprise you, stretch you, and enrich your own perspective.

18. WRITE ABOUT YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD from a different point of view. Think about how someone else would describe your walk. For example, my teen son might say, "My mom has a radical walk with Jesus. She really got pegged (convicted) by this verse." Several friends from the mission field explained how this activity helped them communicate the parable of the sower to the tribe they worked with. In their translation work, they described the seed that grew as the one that fell on "mulchy" soil. In that tribe, the best heart is one that resembles a compost pile. When you consider your walk and God's Word from the perspective of another, you will think differently, cross cultural barriers, and gain a fresh view of god.

19. MEMORIZE ONE OF THE PRAYERS of the Bible, such a Mary's prayer in Lk. 1:46–55. Then act the prayer out as a monologue.

20. WRITE OUT A LIST of theological questions you'd like answered. Choose one and begin researching it. "God, what is in your heart toward women?" was a question I had that led me on an exhaustive study of all the women in the Bible, and all the verses with the words woman and women in them.

ABIDING DAILY

Remember, the purpose of all these ideas is to enhance your relationship with God and your intimacy with Him during your quiet time. The goal is to abide ever more in Him. As Fern Nichols, the founder of Moms In Touch, says, " If you seek to abide in the vine daily, you never know what day He might choose to change you life forever." Enjoy the adventure!


I hope some of these help, if you are looking for a new and fresh way for your quiet time. I plan on doing some of them as well. I always think about how I can make my quiet time better, especially on those days that I forget to have my time with Him. Daily quiet times are wonderful ways of expressing yourself to God in the way that you want to. What do you do for your quiet time?

The Fight for the Invisible Children

For the past 23 years, a war has been raging on in Africa, in Uganda to be exact. During the past two decades, young children have been taken from their homes when the sun sets by a man named Joseph Kony. A man who claims to be a god, a leader, a person that the African people should listen too. He is anything but that. Kony is man that has been stealing children from their parents, and turning them into child soldiers, to fight in the LRA, the Lord's Resistance Army. Young boys, and girls, taken by Kony have been forced to fight, kill, and kidnap others themselves. They are no longer children going to school and playing with their friends, they are having their childhood stolen from them, watching their brothers and sisters killed before their eyes. Kony is making these kids experience things that children should never see.
Three young guys found about silent war happening in Uganda, and they decided to not be silent about it. They took off on a journey to Africa, with their cameras, and hardly any money, in hopes of finding out the true story of what was going on, and why Kony hadn't been stopped. They created a documentary that has now been seen by thousands of people entitled, Invisible Children. It shows the world the dark side of Africa, and what is happening to the thousands of children as they hide together at night, and pray that they don't fall victim to Joesph Kony.

In the recent years, the revolution to rescue these children has erupted. Peace talks with Joeseph Kony have failed at least 5 times. And the hope of getting Kony out of "the bush" was slowly diminshing. The three young guys who brought the issue to life, now have thousands of young, mostly college age, people supporting them. All of us who support the three, our main focus is getting those kids out of the desert and back to their families. We want the children rescued, and we want Kony caught, and punished for all that he has done. During April, in 100 cities, in 10 countries, thousands, if not millions, of young people abducted themselves in the hopes that the world would finally find out about the invisible children. The abducted people waited outside, with limited food and clothing, writing letters to their Senators and Government officials about the issue. They lived outside for however long it took, until a Mogul, or Rescuer, came to save them. The mogul was either a government official, singer/songwriter, band, or t.v./movie star. Some of these moguls included actress Kristen Bell, singer Matthew Mayfield, many congress men and women, and Oprah, who after 6 days, rescued the crowd in Chicago. For 6 days, people stayed abducted in Chicago in the hopes that someone would rescue them and the children of Uganda. The almost 500 people in Chi-town, were the last of the 100 to be rescued. They stayed outside through freezing weather, and severe thunderstorms, to get attention to the children. Finally, Oprah came to their rescue, and told the world what those young people were up too. She gave attention to the story of the invisible children, and what Kony has been doing.

Although all of the towns have been rescued for awhile, the fight to save the children of Uganda and those in the LRA is far from over. The 20 year war will not be over until Joesph Kony comes out of the bush and releases the children, or he is pulled out. The war will not be over, until all of the children have been found, rescued, and returned to their families. The war will not be over, until the killing, fighing, abducting, has ceased. Kony's main location is known, but nothing can really be done, because anyone who enters the area, and gets close to Kony, will be killed. Joesph Kony must be stopped, and those children need to be rescued. I cannot express how important this cause is to me. You have to watch the documentary that started it all, to truly see the extent of what is happening. Even the film does not show it all, because we do not live over there. Please, watch the film, and get involved. Even if all you can do is pray for the children every day, that is something, and no prayer goes unheard. Please learn more about this, and tell your friends and family about it. There is power in the numbers, the more people who know about this, the greater the fight for the children is. Together we can rescue the children from Joesph Kony.

To watch the film, Invisible Children, go here.

To visit the website for Invisible Children, go here, or here.

For more information on the event, The Rescue, go here.



Together we are Free.
One Love.
Peace.