Build Your Quiet Time Habit
When I ask college students, “how is your walk with the Lord?”, I am typically treated to a day-by-day review of how much time they spent reading the Bible. It’s usually shared with guilt and disappointment, as the student struggles to give God’s word the time it deserves. Personal quiet times of Bible reading and prayer are not the whole of someone’s spiritual life. However, it is one of the simplest and most effective ways to grow spiritually. Yet most people struggle to form this habit. Here are some things that have helped me.
Ask for Help
Have you ever prayed and asked God to make you more consistent in prayer? Have you reached out to friends, asking them to pray that you’d be faithful to read your Bible? Inviting God to give us a hunger for His Word is the most effective tool we have. The desire to spend time with God must come from the Spirit. Ask the Lord to incline your heart towards Him, and to make you disciplined study and prayer.
Just Do It
This will not work for everyone, but for certain personality types, this is the key. When I was a junior in college, I attended a Christian retreat. The speaker told us that there was nothing stopping us from reading our Bible and praying daily. We just needed to stop making excuses and do it. Just decide, put it in your schedule, and don’t compromise. Skip a shower or a workout, be late to class, wake up earlier, or do whatever it takes. But don’t let it be optional anymore, just always do it.
I took that to heart and have probably missed fewer than 20 daily quiet times in the 13 years since. Some of you have a similar personality and simply need to be told, “just do it”. Commit to doing it daily, and then follow through.
Start Slowly
For most people, “just do it” does not help at all. This is where we can draw from modern habit science. Let’s say your goal is to do a half an hour quiet time each morning. Do not start off trying to do 30 minutes every day. Instead, start so small that it’s difficult to fail.
For example, commit to reading one verse from the Psalms for 30 seconds, and then praying for 30 seconds. Set an actual time and stick to it! That is a 60 second quiet time. If you forget about it all day and don’t remember until you’re already in bed with the lights out, you can wake up, do the 60 seconds, and then go to sleep. Now, one minute of quiet time is not as likely to be deeply spiritually nourishing as half an hour. But in the early stages of habit change, it is more important to check the box of completing the habit than it is to get results. Another alternative is to do a five-minute quiet time, but only one day a week. Keep it so easy that you have to try to fail.
I’d recommend at least 7 days straight of completing the habit before increasing either duration or frequency. When you do increase, do it slowly. Maybe you move to two-minute quiet times or five minutes, two days a week. Start slow and build slow. As you do, scripture and prayer will become a normal part of your routine. It is easier to make a small habit bigger, than to start a big habit from nothing.
Habit Stack
Another tip from modern science is to link a new habit to an existing habit. This is called habit stacking. For example, if you have the habit of brushing your teeth before bed and you want to do a nighttime quiet time, link those practices. Don’t brush your teeth until after you’ve finished scripture reading and prayer. By putting your new habit before your old habit, you are tricking your brain. Every time your brain sends you the signal that you need to brush your teeth, it’s also signaling you to do a quiet time. For added reinforcement, put your Bible next to your toothbrush so that you don’t forget.
Make A Plan You Like
Sitting down every day without a reading plan can be intimidating and might keep you from starting your quiet time. Similarly, if a reading plan is too complex or intense, it can be overwhelming. Instead, learn what motivates you and construct a plan that you will look forward to each day.
I do well reading straight through books of the Bible at whatever pace fits the content. I start reading at chapter one ,verse one, and go until I feel like I’ve read enough for my study process (COMA, or OIA). I am flexible with how many verses I read, but more rigid with the questions I use to dissect those verses.
My prayer life flourishes with structure. I have daily and weekly prayer requests written down that I go through every morning. I can add lib as much as I want, but the framework gets me started, and makes sure I am praying about the things that matter most.
Learn what motivates you and what engages you. Take time to experiment and find what works, and don’t be afraid to adapt over time. I’m not a huge fan of pre-written devotionals, but I love them around Christmas and Easter. Sometimes I’ve included scripture memorization or singing into my quiet time, other times I’ve done a word study on a particular concept and written down notes. Make a plan and revise as needed.
In Closing
God has “…exalted above all things [His] name and [His] word” (Psalm 1382b), and we are told to “pray continually” (1 Thessalonians 5:16-17). The most important thing we can do in a day is study, worship, and honor Christ. Make it a habit, and the Word will bear fruit in your life.