My heart has longed for many years to be more disciplined about carving out consistent spaces in my life for quiet. I’ve sometimes thought it was because I wasn’t putting forth enough effort. I believed that I simply needed to try harder. But when I asked why I was failing and why it was so hard for me, I began to notice some thought patterns that kept preventing or interrupting the daily practice of quiet moments. The first one being the belief that I don’t have the time.
Quiet time has often been delayed or deleted from my days when I perceive that time is scarce. What I’ve come to find is that though time is precious, it is sufficient.
Regardless of the fact that I’m steadily given more time each day, there’s somehow still not enough of it to cover my to do lists. I’ve been learning the unwelcome lesson that perhaps the issue is not with how much time I have, but with all that I want to accomplish. There’s enough time in each day, but there’s not enough time to do everything. And there never will be. Even when we’re functioning optimally. Even when there aren’t little ones underfoot. We still have to say no to some things in order to say yes to others.
And so, we have to determine what is significant enough in our lives to say yes to daily.
Upon closer examination of my life I also started to notice bits of time that I was giving away to unworthy things. Sometimes they were even good things, but they weren’t the best things. When the good things are getting in the way of the best things, they aren’t really good things then anymore, are they? They’re distractions. That’s not to say that we have to abandon those good things forever, if they are in fact good things and we have space in them for our lives. But if we must choose, we need to choose the very good. And making space for quiet in a loud world to dwell in the presence of God is the best good for us. Because that time illuminates everything else.
There are two main categories that I was noticing my time being squandered: on the almost good things and on the mindless things.
The almost good things often evidence a life wanting in wisdom. It’s the adoption of the idea that we don’t have time to filter out what the most important things are and devote our time to them alone. We just give our time to whatever pseudo-good thing beckons for our attention first or loudest. And then we don’t have time for the richest things that bring life and love.
The mindless things are likely due to the very real fact that this is an overwhelming time to be a person. When I shift into mindless activities, I’m refusing to give my mind what its asking for: a pause. Instead of a pause, I give my mind more information to process, but permission to not care about any of it. And time gets lost. And that matters not because we have to be efficient and productive every moment of the day, but because we’re not listening to the rhythms of rest our mind, body, and soul crave.
The truth is that I have enough time. We have enough time. You have enough time. (There’s something freeing about those words.) It’s been said by many that we have enough time to do anything, but we cannot do everything. We do have the time we long for to dwell in truth and to allow that truth to infuse meaning and love into the rest of our days. But we will need to prioritize this space for quiet above the almost good and the mindless activities that have become our default. Quiet time is a sacrifice and an investment, but the benefits are lasting and worthwhile. Arguably, we dwell in God’s presence every moment, but this intentional space for quieting ourselves brings clarity to the rest of our day. It takes all the abstract goodness that God desires for us and reveals where that meets the tangible and practical.
Teach me to treat my time with reverence and gratitude. Help me to remember that prioritizing quiet time for truth and reflection then proceeds to touch all the other parts of my life. Guide me with wisdom and awareness of how I spend my days. And in a society that vilifies time as the enemy, teach me to embrace it as gift with contentment, knowing that I’ve been given a sufficient amount and that I’ve chosen to spend it well.
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