Jesus Is the Ultimate Role Model for Your Quiet Time
By Grace McCready
I’ve been writing blog posts for Wholehearted Quiet Time for about two years, which is crazy to think about! I’ve written about a lot of different quiet time topics, and I’m grateful for the opportunity to write for this ministry. One thing I’m particularly passionate about is transparency—especially with other Christians—so I finally decided to write about being transparent about our quiet times.
When we discuss our quiet times, it’s easy to pretend that we have the secret formula for having the perfect quiet time. Perhaps you’ve heard a friend say, “When I read the Bible like this, everything makes sense to me” or “When I pray like this, I feel really close to Jesus.” Statements like that can be helpful, but they can also cause us to doubt ourselves and our personal quiet time habits. They can lead to comparison and even jealousy if we’re not careful.
Here at Wholehearted Quiet Time, we stress the importance of cultivating a deeper relationship with Jesus through reading Scripture, praying, worshipping, journaling, etc. We encourage readers with advice and suggestions that relate to having a quiet time. But the truth is that no member of the Wholehearted Quiet Time team—including me—has the perfect quiet time. In fact, there’s no such thing as a perfect quiet time. All of us are in a life-long process of becoming more like Jesus and quiet time is just one of the tools we’re learning to use.
Honestly, I struggle a lot with setting aside time to read my Bible and pray—even for 10 minutes a day. I had actually let my quiet time fall by the wayside until very recently. One night during Bible study a couple of months ago, one of the pastors at my church told each of us to write down two things that we needed to work on in our Christian walk.
It didn’t take me long to think of two things—reading the Bible for five minutes every day and praying for five minutes every day. We wrote our two things on two notecards—one notecard to keep and one to give to the pastor. The accountability has helped me get back into the habit of having a quiet time.
It didn’t take me long to think of two things—reading the Bible for five minutes every day and praying for five minutes every day. We wrote our two things on two notecards—one notecard to keep and one to give to the pastor. The accountability has helped me get back into the habit of having a quiet time.
You might be thinking, “So you’re a writer for Wholehearted Quiet Time, and you weren’t even having a quiet time until a couple of months ago?” Yes, that’s right. I had a quiet time for many years, but I eventually lost the habit, particularly when I started my current job and felt tired in the mornings and lethargic in the evenings.
That’s no excuse for skipping my quiet time, but my hope is that my transparency encourages you and reminds you that we all have growing to do! We can’t put other Christians or their quiet time habits on a pedestal. Only Jesus belongs on that pedestal, and only He can produce the growth that we so desperately need in our lives.
“I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it so that it may bear more fruit. You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you. Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me. I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in Me, he is thrown away as a branch and dries up; and they gather them, and cast them into the fire and they are burned.” (John 15:1-6 NASB1995)
Friends, we want Wholehearted Quiet Time to be a place where you learn to love spending time with Jesus. But remember that we are learning alongside you. We can all grow together in our quiet times as we abide in the vine, Jesus Christ.
GRACE MCCREADY
Grace enjoys spending time with her family, hanging out with friends, and watching her favorite TV shows. She is the author of Real Recovery: What Eating Disorder Recovery Actually Looks Like (2022).