Pastor Rick Warren: Make Time to Be Quiet

“Find a quiet, secluded place so you won’t be tempted to role-play before God. Just be there as simply and honestly as you can manage. The focus will shift from you to God, and you will begin to sense his grace” (Matthew 6:6 The Message).

God isn’t going to speak to you if your life is filled with a bunch of noise. You’ve got to get alone, and you’ve got to get quiet. We call this a quiet time.

Jesus says it like this in Matthew 6:6: “Find a quiet, secluded place so you won’t be tempted to role-play before God. Just be there as simply and honestly as you can manage. The focus will shift from you to God, and you will begin to sense his grace” (The Message).

Here’s the key to hearing God speak and getting his vision for your life: God wants to meet with you.

You need to realize you’re not waiting on God; he’s waiting on you. God made you to have a relationship with him. He wants you to spend time with him on a daily basis. He wants you to schedule a date with him every day. God is waiting.

Getting alone in a quiet place is pretty difficult today. I don’t know if you realize how much noise there is in your life. You’ve always got the radio on in the car or you’ve got earbuds in or Bluetooth turned on. Every waiting room, grocery store, and elevator has music. There’s very little time or space in your life that’s absolutely quiet.

If you’ve got kids at home, it’s even more difficult! But let me give you some hope. Susanna Wesley, one of the great women of history, had 18 children. One of her sons, John, founded the Methodist church and helped spread Christianity across America, and another, Charles, wrote more than 6,000 hymns.

How do you find time alone when you have 18 children? In her biography, it says that Susanna Wesley would sit in her favorite rocker every afternoon, and she would throw her apron over her head for an hour. Her kids knew that Mom with apron over her head meant, “No child bothers Mom or you face the consequences!”

Wesley said it was the prayers of his mom that shaped his life. You can find time alone if you are that desperate. Make time to be quiet and meet with the Lord.