How to Have a Quiet Time in a Loud World

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Gretchen Saffles
We have been praying for you as we have prepared for this session, and we trust that God is going to use this time to encourage you as you continue pressing on in your faith, seeking Jesus, putting the word before the world, even when it’s loud, even when it’s hard, even when you may not feel like it, because the truth is, God’s word never changes, but it always changes us, and that’s a hope that we have. So, right now, you are in the breakout session, how to have a quiet time in a noisy, loud world. And I know for all of us it is noisy and loud every single day. We are currently in summer mode, and for those of you that still have young or even not so young kids at home, it is loud, and we hear this phrase, we need to have a quiet time, and a lot of times we think I have no quiet time, so How am I supposed to ever spend time with Jesus? Well, we’re going to debunk all the myths today, and we are going to encourage you in the Lord with the word of God. My name is Gretchen Saffles, and I am your panel moderator. I am an author and the founder of Well Watered Women, and I am joined by these two lovely ladies, who I also have the joy of calling friends. So, first is Blair Lynn. Blair is the author of several books, including Made to tremble. How anxiety became the best thing to happen to my faith, is that not such a good word? Even just the title. And then she also came out with a new children’s book recently that we love at our house. It is Yara the Brave and the Swirling Worry. Both of those are in the bookshop, so be sure to check them out. Blair is also a Christian spoken word artist, phenomenal. If you’ve ever heard her, go look her up online. An actress and a Bible teacher, she and her husband, Shai, also lead family workshops, which leads me to Mary. Mary Wiley is the author of several books, as well, including the women’s Bible study, Everyday Theology. It is a good foundation for any woman to begin with, she’s also the author of a children’s discipleship resource, Discovering the Bible, a kids’ guide to reading and understanding God’s word. And we know that there’s not a lot of resources out there for kids, so be sure to check this one out. Mary is also a Bible teacher and the associate publisher at BNH Publishing, which leads me to BNH. We want to thank BNH for sponsoring this breakout session. BNH Publishing Group believes every word matters. They seek to provide Bible-centered content that impacts hearts and minds, inspiring people in their lifelong relationship with Jesus Christ. Thank you. BNH, be sure to check out all these resources in the bookstore. And before we begin, I’m going to pray for us. Father, we thank you for this moment of stillness, this moment where we can be quiet right before you in your presence, and know that you are God, you are good, and your word matters. Father, I pray that you would give Blair and Mary wisdom as they speak truth about what it means to keep pressing on, to keep seeking you in our noisy world, because you are better always in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Blair Linne
Amen.

Gretchen Saffles
So, as we begin, I want to ask you just the most basic of all basic questions, because I think if I were to go to women in this room and say, what is a quiet time, what is a quiet time, I would probably get a lot of different answers. So, let’s iron out the semantics here. What is a quiet time?

Blair Linne
Yeah, so actually, as I was looking up kind of where the concept comes from, quiet time is actually quite a new idea in Christendom. So it was popularized in the late 19th century by two evangelical groups, and the focus was on Bible study, it was on meditation, and silently listening to God. So it kind of hinged upon Psalm 46 verse 10, which says, ‘Be still and know that I am God. And so it just kind of blew up during that time, but prior to that, actually, the phrase that was used, and it’s been used for centuries, was ‘Morning Watch. Are you guys familiar with this? Absolutely. Okay, so, and that’s an idea that we do see in the Old Testament, a lot of times it talks about the watchmen, it was military language, someone watching at night, right, being prepared for what is to come. And then in the fourth and sixth century, that kind of translated into monks, Christian monks, using that as a way to say, I’m going to watch in the night, and a part of that watching meant I’m going to pray, I’m going to meditate before dawn, so there we know there’s no like scripture that commands us specifically on a quiet time, but it’s there’s no

Gretchen Saffles
Bible verse that says you shall have a quiet time every day,

Blair Linne
no, I’m sorry, but what we see is we see a. Elements of what we mean when we say quiet time, that is all it’s mentioned throughout the scripture, right. So there are a few passages that I wanted to mention. Matthew 66 it says, “When you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father, who is in secret, and your Father who sees in secret will reward you. We heard from Psalm One. Melissa taught us in the plenary session that verse it starts, but delight, your delight is in the law of the Lord, and on His word He meditates day and night. Of course, Psalm 119 I have hidden Your word in my heart that I might not sin against You. Verse 15 and 16, I will meditate on your precepts and regard your ways. I will delight in your statues. I will not forget your word. So, again and again, we see throughout the scripture this call to meditate on God’s word, right, to pray to him, to spend time with him. And so that’s kind of what we mean when we say quiet time. Yeah,

Gretchen Saffles
so those are different elements of a quiet time, Mary. If we were to rephrase what a quiet time is, because I think that for a lot of women that phrase can really kind of hang us up, because our lives are really loud. If you have young kids at home, if you’re a primary caregiver, there’s a lot going on. So, can we seek Jesus when it’s loud, it

Mary Wiley
is very rare that it is quiet in my house. I have four children, the youngest of which is six months old, and there’s just a lot of movement, and I’m sure there are a lot of women here who can relate. And so, while a quiet time, a formal 15 minutes, one hour, 30 minutes, whatever you have selected as what you assume is the correct amount of time for your quiet time is not scriptural, but what is scriptural is that we are to remain or abide in Him, and we can do that when it’s loud, we can do that when it’s quiet, we can do that when we have hours, and we can do that when we have just moments, but the Christian life is not centered on a one hour start to your, to your day, although I dream of those days to return to my home once a

Gretchen Saffles
year. You’re like that filled me for the next 365 such a gift.

Mary Wiley
I dream of the hours, and there is so much benefit to spending hours in Bible study. We’re going to talk a little bit about the difference between what devotional reading and actually studying the Bible might look like, but if you’re here and you are exhausted, you have little ones, maybe you’re dealing with aging parents, you have a lot of things on your plate, hear me say that God is not some cosmic checklist checker who’s making sure that you read enough verses today, but he is a God who invites you to the table and who says, “Come and eat, come and eat from my word. It’s the bread of life, said in Deuteronomy, as well as in Matthew four four, when Jesus is tempted in the, in the wilderness by the, by Satan, he says, man must not live by bread alone. And y’all, I don’t miss a meal, and so especially with bread, especially with bread. And so, in the morning, when I wake up, I’m hungry. So, what do I do? I go to the kitchen, and I figure out what I’m gonna make for myself, and then my children, because it’s never the same thing. You know, if you’re a mom, you’re like, ‘Oh, you don’t like eggs today, great. But it is that same kind of satisfaction we’re seeking. And so, when, whether we use the term quiet time or abiding in Christ, remaining in Him, what I hope that you will leave today with is not a lot of tools for what to do in 1520 30 minutes, although we do want to equip you today, and what I hope you will leave with is a desire to center your entire life on Christ. Everything about you to be centered on the text, which we see in Deuteronomy, Deuteronomy six, of course, the Shema, which for God’s people, for so long they recited it every morning, every night. It says this: it says, ‘Listen, Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength. These words that I’m giving you today are to be in your heart. Repeat them to your children. Talk about them when you sit in your house, and when you walk along the road, when you lie down, and when you get up. Bind them as a sign on your hand, and let them be a symbol on your forehead. Write them on the doorpost of your house, and on your city gates. And what I see in that passage is not quiet, it’s actually community, and what we really need is not just a moment alone with the Lord, although hear us say we do want you to do that, but what we really need is you and your Bible and the church, because we are sharpened in our faith when we are together as. Just what you’re doing in this room right now,

Gretchen Saffles
that’s beautiful. Even bringing in the community idea and aspect, because the truth is, we’re going to be interrupted, and I always go back to Mark 135 where Jesus has gone away, and He is spending time alone with the Father. He woke up early, I mean, it’s just you start the verse and you’re like, oh, I want this so much, and then all of a sudden the disciples are like, Jesus, where are you? Like, we’re looking for you. And instead of saying, go away, like, I need these five minutes alone, Jesus invites them in, and he goes with them, and he says, this is where we’re going to next. He fed his soul, and he set the example for us of what it looks like to take that time with the father, whether we don’t know how long it was, maybe he had five minutes, maybe he was had that time with the father for a couple of hours, we don’t know, but we do see Jesus in circumstances like that modeling for us what it looks like, and one phrase that I have used in my own life is word before world, because the reality is, a quiet time is all about rooting yourself, abiding in God’s unchanging word, and it’s not about check, check, check, you know, I did this today, I did this today, it’s about living your life shaped by the gospel, it’s about having His word in you and living from it. So, what are some other ways that Jesus modeled these disciplines that you’re talking about? You mentioned meditation, prayer, scripture reading. How do we see Jesus, who is the Word made flesh, modeling this example for

Blair Linne
us? Yeah, it’s interesting, even as you mentioned about Jesus being communal and welcoming them in, based upon that passage in Mark. It made me think about him in the Garden of Gethsemane, because it’s the same, you know, he, he goes to, was it Peter, James, and John, you know, asking them, “Would you pray with me? Now they were tired, they weren’t able to pray like some of us feel many mornings or evenings, but he welcomed them in, he welcomed them in, and then when they were not able, he still continued to pray. He often got away to pray, to cry out to the Father before going to the cross. And so we see him also singing with the disciples, and so they sang a hymn together before he went to the cross. So we do see Jesus model this for us. They’re

Mary Wiley
also eating together, they’re doing life together as they talk about God’s word, as they are going on their way, just like Deuteronomy six says. And this moment, and I’ve already mentioned in the wilderness, when he’s being tempted, he’s not just saying, “Hey, enemy, get away, which we do expect him to say, like, “Hey, sit down, you don’t have power over here, but he doesn’t speak, even from his own authority, which I find so fascinating. I’m like, you are God, you could have just said listen out, and he would have had to flee, but he doesn’t do that. Instead, he shows us what it looks like to rightly oppose the enemy, and that is by internalizing scripture so much that when we are oppressed, when we are squeezed, it just flows right out.

Gretchen Saffles
And what is Satan’s response to that?

Mary Wiley
He loves to quote scripture back, he does, but it’s out of context, and it is in inappropriate ways. And so we must know God to be able to worship Him, right? We have to know the God we want to abide in to do it correctly, and where do we know God? Well, we know God in the pages of His word that He meets with us there.

Gretchen Saffles
Yeah, and praise God, that word has power. And because the word is Christ made flesh, and this word is living and active, it’s sharper than any two edged sword. I could pull out a random book from my library at home, and read it, and those words aren’t going to have a lot of meaning, especially when they’re out of context. And so, as we’re talking about this, and what it looks like to have a quiet time, I want to talk about what that looks like in your day-to-day life, because there are different types of ways that we approach God’s word. So, there’s devotional reading, there’s going through a Bible study, like Mary has written. There is reading through the Bible chronologically. There’s a lot of different ways. So I know a lot of us in here, I’m going to guess, like to have a plan. Does anybody else like to have a plan? And we want to crack the formula, like you may be sitting in here, and like I’m going to walk away, and I’m going to know how to do this now, and if anything, you’re going to walk away just being like, oh, we’re all in the same boat, like we’re all figuring this out together and pressing on to Jesus. But what are some of those regular rhythms, and I, you know, one of the core, core ones is the word of God, and, and like Mary said, Satan does twist God’s word, that’s why we have to know God’s word, not just through receiving it on Instagram from an influencer, but we have to know it by actually opening these pages and sitting in it ourselves. But ultimately, Satan flees at the word of God. He can’t stand against this word. This word has the final say, and so that’s what we base our lives upon. So, what are. Of the primary elements of having that time with Jesus, quiet time, putting the word for the world. What does that look like?

Mary Wiley
Yeah, so of course we want to be in the word, and I think often we think we have to have a plan, but God’s word is sufficient for us. And so if you are here today and you’re like, I don’t have time for a plan, plans feel restrictive, that is okay. It’s okay if you did not just raise your hand when Gretchen said, ‘Do you want a plan? You’re like, ‘I hate plans, actually. No, that’s okay. You’re safe here. And the word of God is a plan, right? It is written in literary units that you can follow. It is written chronologically, and within those units that you can follow, and so, so many times we think we have to sit down at a table and be able to take an Instagram photo that looks really esthetic of our time with the Lord. You don’t have to have the right color highlighter. It’s okay if your index cards aren’t the right color. It’s okay if your Bible, Gretchen holds her Bible up. It’s okay if your Bible doesn’t have a cover anymore, because it tells us that you use it and that you love it. There’s nothing in this world I love more than seeing a beat-up Bible in someone’s arms, because it truly means that it has become a balm to them. And I think so often we miss the balm that scripture is in our quiet time. God is not requiring a duty of us, although it is something He tells us to do, but He is inviting us into a delight, into Sabbath with Him, that it is what it looks like to rest in Him. And so may we enter those time frames, even very practically, with a heart towards rest. Okay. God, I want to meet with you. I want to sit in this moment. I want to hear from you. I was really guilty as a college student of wanting God to write His, His will for my life in the sky. Anybody been there? You’re like, I’m going to open my Bible, I’m gonna flip to a verse. God, please, can you just make it make sense with my life? You

Gretchen Saffles
learn which part not to flip to. Yeah, and then you’re like kind of towards this section. You’re like, “First, I’m not gonna like that one. Not

Mary Wiley
there. Keep going, Leviticus. Nope, not there either. And yet, God has given us His word, so that we might know His will. You don’t have to wait for a sign. You don’t have to wait for it to be written in the sky. He has given you his word, so that you can rest in it, so that you can know his will. And so, before we even talk about, okay, what do you need? What practical pieces do you need? We really just want to come to the table with a heart that says, God, I surrender. God, I want to receive today. God, my heart is chaotic. Teach me to rest in you, and not just in a day. A lot of us think that Sabbath is like a day when I sit and rot on the couch, and what God has taught me is that true Sabbath is these moments with Him that don’t have to even live in a single moment of the day, but are scattered throughout my day, that when I begin to feel anxious, or when my kid asks me question number 487 for the day, and he follows it up with, but why, that I can just lean back and say, Lord, I need your strength, I need your patience, I need you to intervene, and I want to meet with you, even here. How else would you say Blair like when they’re entering into quiet time? What do they, what do they need to know, what they need

Blair Linne
to do? Yeah, yeah. So, as I hear you, one of the things that you mentioned is really kind of getting at the motive. What is the heart? Why are we coming and desiring to have this time? And one of the things that I’ve learned over time is my motive should be to know God, not to just gain more information or more knowledge, not to say, “Oh yeah, I read that” or “I studied that, but it’s literally to know Him, and when we have a very high view of His word, we approach the word, we live our life surrounded around the word, because we know this is the authority that God has placed in my life. God’s word is sufficient. God’s word, it says in Second Timothy, chapter three, verse 16, all scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for rebuking, for correcting, for training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be complete, not lacking anything, right. So the motive is very important. And then I am going to say something that’s different than what Mary said, because I think it’s important for those who don’t need a plan to not be hindered by not having a plan, but for me I need a plan, and I’ve just noticed that throughout my life, the moments where I don’t have a plan, it’s hard, it’s easy for the immediate needs to be swallowed up, you know, I. My time to be swallowed up by the immediate needs, and so it’s just like I plan my meals, and I go to the grocery store to decide what I’m going to cook for my family throughout the week. I have to plan my time in God’s word in advance, so for me it’s helpful to choose a time, to choose a place, and to choose a book of the Bible, or a devotional, or whatever book I’m going to read, because sometimes I have the time and I have the place, but I’m like, what am I reading? It’s almost like trying to choose a Netflix show, and that takes forever. And

Gretchen Saffles
you sit down, and you spend 30 minutes doing it, then you turn the TV off. How many of you have done that with your Bible? You’ve sat down, you’re like, what do I read, and you just flip, flip, flip, flip, and then all of a sudden you got to go to the next thing. So that’s where I do, for me, I have to have a plan, and I’ll share more about that in a second.

Blair Linne
Yeah, I also think it’s helpful to have your Bible in easy reach, right? That it’s easy to reach for. So I have my Bible here, but I also have, like, a pocket Bible that, if I’m on the go, I can just slip it in my purse. If I’m traveling, I can just slip it in my bag, and it’s just really easy on the go. And I have this like organizer, so it’s like a craft organizer that I have at home, and I have my Bible. If I’m, if I have a commentary that I’m working on, if I have my journal in there, and I do like the highlighters and the pens, and so I have those in my pockets all around, and it’s just nice to know it’s right here. Everything that I need is right here. I know the place, I know it’s going to be in my sitting room in the morning, you know. I know the time for me before my kids get up, and I know the book of the Bible that I’m choosing, so that’s been helpful for me,

Gretchen Saffles
and that’s a very key aspect of building any sort of habit or rhythm. I mean, if you just read any literature on habits, you want to remove obstacles. So, let’s say you’re like, “New year, I’m going to go to the gym. Well, if you don’t have tennis shoes, you’re not going to go to the gym. Like, you buy your shoes, you put them out, you put the outfit out, and that’s like one step closer to actually making it to the gym. Well, a lot of times we don’t approach our scripture reading like that. We kind of squeeze God in if we can find the time, we pencil him in instead of scheduling our days around him. But the other thing is we need the actual tools, like we need our Bible, and so I discovered just over years of going, waking up, and going, where did I put my Bible? I wish I was more organized. I’m just not. And so that has become something where I know where I put my Bible. When I come home from church or from Bible study, I go back to the cabinet where it goes, and I put my Bible there, and I keep pens there, and I keep my journal there, because as busy women, I’m going to guess that most of you, if not all of you, would say my life feels pretty packed. It feels pretty busy. To eliminate that one obstacle is just going to open up the opportunity to go, I’ve got this time right now. This is what I’m reaching for. I’m reaching for God’s word.

Mary Wiley
Yeah, I love what you’re saying here. I do want to be clear, I do also love a plan, but I think I do want to release you from feeling like you have to use a study plan. So, just to edit that a little bit, we want you to be in the Bible, is your plan, right? Like, we’re doing something in the Bible for sure. We want you to be in a book of the Bible, the best way is never flip, flip, flip, point, the word of the Lord will not return void, He will use that too, but it’s not the most effective strategy, but what we do see is the more we can place things, even throughout the Old Testament, God’s people are called to build altars to put big stones together, so that when they walk by those places they will remember, and we are a forgetful people. I love to read the stories in the Old Testament and think I’m Moses in the story. We are not Moses, we are those Israelites who are like, “What I’m supposed to do? What, and I need those reminders. So, for me, it has also been creating easily repeatable steps that I can do every day, no matter where I am in the Bible, no matter where I am in the US, no matter how loud my kids are. And so, that might look like, okay, I am always going to follow this same model of I read a text, I pray first, because we always need the Holy Spirit to help us understand the text. Y’all, we are reading an ancient book, and I do want you to, like, really wrestle with that, that it is okay to say, “Hey, Leviticus is a hard book for me. Hey, the kings, I’m not really sure why we’re on our ninth genealogy. Can you help me? Why is this? Well, it is an ancient book, but it is an ancient book for the church today. So, we do have to do the work to figure out what we do with that. And so, what we do is, I teach this all the time. What we do first is pray, then we read and. Reread whatever passage you’re in, read it once, but read it again to make sure you understand it. Y’all, I use this with kids every Sunday. It is a phenomenal way that you can even help the kids in your home to read and understand God’s word. Then we go back through, we ask, and we answer. We ask as many questions as we can about the text. I was in college a long time ago, don’t ask when, and I walked into my campus minister’s office, and he had chosen a group of us to disciple, and he, in our first meeting, assigned us three verses and said, ‘Do not come back in this room until you’ve asked 50 questions about these three verses, and y’all, 19 year old Mary Carlisle Wiley rolled her eyes, rolled her eyes, because I was like, that is not possible, and I feel like I’m wasting my time. And my sweet campus minister looked at me and said, that is fine that you feel that way, but do not come back in this room until you have 50 questions. And I also like a plan, and I’m very Type A, and you better believe I walked back in with my 50 questions, and what I learned that day is that none of our questions were the same, way more than 50 questions could have been asked about that same passage, and with every question we were deepening our understanding. Asking questions is not hard, and if you have kids, you know that that is true, because when I said you have 487 questions, that’s like by 10am So we ask questions like we are children of the text, and then we pray back through that same passage. It is not complicated, but it is something that you can follow as an easy plan process for every day. Also, use a lot of Post-it notes. There are Post Notes on our mirror at home. I put one in the center of my steering wheel as I drive. Just ways to continue to ingest God’s word, no matter how you might be experiencing your day. Maybe you set alarms on your phone.

Mary Wiley
I do this to pray for people often. We’ll set an alarm. Maybe you want to set an alarm, and it says, “Go read Psalm 119 be reminded of the beauty of God’s word. Maybe you have a podcast that you’re like, “Hey, this podcast is scripture-soaked, and I’m going to every day when I drive my kids to school, or when I go to the grocery store, when I drive to church, I’m going to make sure that I’m listening to things that are building my faith rather than tearing them down, and so it doesn’t have to be complicated. It just becomes a piece of your everyday life that, just like you said, Gretchen, becomes a habit of, like, I get in the car, I turn on my podcast, I get out of the car, I take my Post-it note with me off the steering wheel, stick it in my back pocket, and instead of scrolling my phone at a red light, what am I doing instead? I’m hiding God’s word in my heart.

Gretchen Saffles
Yeah, we love to complicate things. I do. As women, we’re just like, how can we make this so complicated? And, but when it comes to God’s word, we have His word, and as a Christ follower who has been covered by His righteousness. You have access to the throne of grace. You have the Holy Spirit in you. You have what you need. And as Mary was talking about praying beforehand, I know that sometimes when I’m coming into my Bible study time, my brain is frazzled, completely frazzled. I mean, it’s just all over the place. And so there’s a couple of very practical things I want to share that I do that I would love for y’all to share as well. So, okay, let’s get real practical. Number one, my phone is such a distraction, like I cannot have my phone, I can’t even have it turned down, like you know where the screen’s facing down, because still I can feel a little buzz on the couch, or you know, I get distracted, and I’m like, oh, I forgot to add milk to the grocery list, and all the different things, and so that very simple but very hard discipline of either putting my phone in another room or actually turning it off for that time, and I’m telling you, even if it’s just 10 minutes turning your phone off, you will feel a physical release in your body that you can just go for this amount of time. It is just me and Jesus in the word. There’s nothing else that’s going to distract me, and I know as women we can get so afraid, like, but what if what if something horrible happens in that 10 minutes? Well, that’s also one of the things we bring to the Lord, and we say, God, I’m worried about this, I’m worried that this will happen, so to remove that major obstacle of your phone, but also praise God, we have the Bible on our phone, right? The other thing, though, is I a lot of times have to do a brain dump before I do my Bible study, I’ll keep like a note card, Post-it notes, or an extra journal, and as all those like kind of random really thoughts come and I’m like, oh, I did forget, I really did forget to buy the milk, like we need milk. I can just jot it down, and then I can go back to my Bible study, and that’s one way to again regain our attention, go back to the word of God. But also, in busy seasons, we can listen to God’s word. I love. Listening to God’s word when the day is just crazy and the kids have been very loud and needing a lot of things, and I can just turn it on, and they’re also hearing the word of God too. So, what are some other very practical things that you guys do? Like, let’s get nitty gritty. I mean, I know we love to hear the practical things. Yeah,

Blair Linne
yeah, one of the things, and it’s interesting, because I remember years ago when I just had one child at the time, had a young child, and I just worked on sleep training, so he was just a few months old, and he was going to bed from six to six, which is a blessing. Praise the Lord. Yes, I was like, thank you, Lord. And so I made the plan, I’m going to wake up at five, and I’m going to spend some time in God’s word, and what do you know, he woke up at five. That’s just kind of how it works, you know. And so there was a part of me that really wanted to be upset about that, you know. My plan is now hindered, but I’ve learned over time, even as we are talking, that it’s not so much about the quiet time, you can welcome your children in. What a blessing that your children can observe you, or your grandchildren can observe you in God’s word. And what I learned in those very hard times of having very young kids was audio Bibles are a blessing, listening to music like hymns and gospel songs was such a blessing to me in those times, because I think initially I didn’t count it as time with the Lord, because I didn’t have a physical Bible, and so I had to really get over that, that the point is getting to know God, and so it can come in many different ways, whether you can sit down and physically read the Bible, or you’re listening to the Bible, or you’re listening to songs, you’re listening to an encouraging podcast. One other thing that I often do is I have it stack, so I do two things at once, so I know, like, I need to walk every day, I need to get some exercise, so I’ll use that time to listen to either an encouraging sermon or listen to a wonderful podcast that is highlighting God’s word. Another thing that I do is, and this is when I had really young kids, I would tell my husband what what I needed, and that was a hard thing for me. I think a lot of moms may relate to that. You are in this season where you just want to care for others, you’re pouring out and you’re considering others’ needs, and sometimes it’s hard to acknowledge, well, wait, I have needs, and so I began to share with my husband, it would really serve me if I every month, if I could just go to the coffee shop for a few hours and spend some time in the Word, and it would serve me if, like, you know, two times a year I could just get away with some Christian friends, and then we can go have a little retreat. So, communicating what you need also is very helpful when it comes to this time. And then the last thing that I’ll say is accountability, have a partner right connect with another sister in the Lord, whether that’s spending time praying together or even reading a book of the Bible together, reading a book together, reading, going through an inductive Bible study together. You don’t have to do this alone, you know. So, if it feels intimidating, like, how do I get started? Where do I begin? Pull other believers in and say, let’s do this together, whether one sister or maybe a group of you, so you don’t have to do it alone.

Gretchen Saffles
That’s beautiful. I was in a Bible study group once, where we, anytime we, it was a lot of young moms, so of course our time with Jesus was not always in the morning, it was at all kinds of times of day, and whenever we would read the Bible, we would just send like a little random emoji, and in the text thread, and then everybody would be like, “Oh, she just read her Bible done right now, like, oh, I could do that too, you know, it’s actually quiet time, like I could set aside my phone, or it’s really late at night, and she just read her Bible, and so that was a very small, tangible way that I was able to see. Okay, these are how my – this is how my sisters in Christ are still seeking Jesus. So, as we know, life goes in seasons, and right now you may be in that season of just a lot of chaos, young kids, or you could be in a season where now you’re an empty nester, and you’ve been in those years, and now you’re going, wait, I have the time, but I don’t even know what to do, or you could be in a season of suffering where it is just so hard to even open your Bible. So, what encouragement would you give to women who are walking through those different seasons? And I would love to hear just maybe, like, an example or two of different seasons of your quiet time life, like, how has that looked different?

Mary Wiley
Yeah, I think about when I was just newly married, and thought, man, I’m so busy. Isn’t it funny how you, you think we fill our time, right? No matter what season we’re in, we fill our time. Time, and yet I found myself able to really put it on my calendar and say this is going to be consistent every day, we’re going to be in the Word in the morning. I love early hours of the morning, and so I’m the only coffee drinker in my house, and so there’s like nothing happier to me than to like smell the early morning coffee and sit down and kind of watch the sunrise, and just kind of see the beauty of what God has created, and be in His word. But today I have four children, many of which rise before I do. That 5am mark hits, and my girl, my oldest girl, is like, “What are you eating today? I’m ready, like you’re going back to your room to go to sleep, and in these this season, what I’m finding is that I still can have rhythms, although I have to be willing to hold them loosely, so that when your kid wakes up at 5am and you’ve decided that that was going to be your time, that when you miss the calendar invite, it’s not a wash for the whole day, so I’m holding lunch plans loosely, I’m holding what happens after bedtime loosely, because I know that I need to be nourished by His word, and that for me to go without is to seek malnourishment and is to miss out on the blessing that it is to know God today, to spend time with God today, and so this season looks really different, but it is just as valuable as that early season, where it was very easy to be consistent. Now it does look more like audio, I tell people all the time, the early church heard the audio version of the Bible first. That’s

Gretchen Saffles
right, and they were telling it to each other,

Mary Wiley
and they were speaking it to each other. That’s a great, great point, Gretchen. Is that we are preaching the gospel to one another just as much as we are preaching it to ourselves. And I love your text message example, because I have a group of friends that we will share Bible verses as well, to say this really encouraged me today, or hey, I need prayer today, and everyone will drop everything they’re doing and immediately pray. You need the church, because Christianity is not an individual sport, but sitting down and opening your Bible and reading a physical copy with your eyes also isn’t the only right successful way to have a quiet time. The only way I’ve made it through Leviticus in the past is to do audio, because I’m like, we gotta keep going, we cannot get lost in these details, and that is okay. It is okay for you to say I gotta pop in the ear, the earbud, while I’m cleaning my kitchen. This is when I most often listen to scripture every night, as I like to reset my kitchen before I go to bed, because if I wake up and there’s like crust on the oven, it just makes me kind of, it grosses me out a little bit. And so I always love to clean my kitchen before I go to bed, and I just pop in an earbud, just one, so I can hear the chaos that’s happening. I can monitor all the people, but that has been such a balm to my soul. And when I found that I’m facing suffering, when I found that it’s hardest to get in His word, the place I go is the Psalms, where I hear God say through his word, I get it, I see it, and I’ve done something about it. You may not see it today, but you will, and that has been such a beautiful promise to me, to see the messianic psalms, to say Jesus is coming, and for us to live on this side of it, to say Jesus has come, and He will come again, and no matter what suffering I face, these words are medicine to me. These words are life to me. And so it is a daily working in, whether it’s while kids are running around or not. I grew up with a mom that I caught many times in her chair with her Bible open in her lap, and it was instructive to me, I am who I am today because of those moments. Know that what you might feel frustrated about may be what the next generation stands on a stage one day and says, ‘Let me tell you about my mom. That can be you. That’s beautiful.

Blair Linne
That’s so good. We have such a great privilege, like we get to read God’s word, we get to study God’s word, and it’s a blessing to be in this country that we’re in, to be in a position where I have multiple versions of the Bible in my home, and it’s been that way pretty much my whole life, and so to be able to value God’s word, I think that’s the heart, to value His word, right, to love His word, to love His law, to see this as a great privilege, and to know that the reason that we’re spending time in God’s word is not to make us righteous, right, we spend time into. In God’s word, because we have been made righteous by Jesus, and so something that I’ve had to learn, even when I do have a plan, whether it’s a Bible reading plan or something that I’m studying, and let’s say, you know, we’re at day 10, and you know, every day I’ve been in the word, and then here comes day 11, you know, and something hinders me getting into the word, that it’s important for me to not condemn myself, because I realize the reason why I’m in the word, the reason is to get to know him. And so, what do we do? We don’t have to beat our breast, beat ourselves, punish ourselves for not getting in the word that one day we just pick back up and we go back to the word, so if we miss day 11, we go back to it day 12, just like if we missed a meal, right? You’ve been using this imagery of a meal and this feast that we have in God’s word, you know? If you miss a meal, you don’t say, “Oh man, I gotta go punish myself because I miss my food. I missed lunch today. What do you do?

Gretchen Saffles
Swing by Chick-fil-A?

Blair Linne
Come on,

Mary Wiley
that’s it, right there.

Blair Linne
You know, you get your number one, or whatever your, whatever your jam is at Chick-fil-A, and you keep eating. And so that’s what I have had to learn over time, is to keep eating. Don’t be hindered if you miss a day, and that may look many different ways. It’s looked different ways in different seasons. In some seasons, it’s been more devotional reading, where you know I’m reading through just books of the Bible, and I’m not really spending a lot of time stopping and kind of doing a thorough time of study. There are times where I’ve just read through the whole Bible, and then there are other times where I’m focusing in on a book, you know, and I recommend, if you’re going to take time to study a book, I tend to lean into a smaller book or a gospel, so maybe an epistle and a gospel is going to be helpful, because it’s going to be a very clear argument, something that you can follow, if it’s a small book, you can finish it, and feel.. I don’t want to say feel accomplished, but you can praise the Lord that you’ve gotten through it. So, I would start there, rather than maybe in Deuteronomy, or, you know, another book that might be a little more difficult. Yeah, so those are a few tips, and. and there’s benefits to both, benefits to studying devotionally, and benefit, benefits certainly to studying. Let’s say more of an inductive style, where you are opening up the text, you’re reading the text first of all in context. You want to know what comes before the text, what’s coming after the text, what genre are we in. You’re asking questions of the text, you know, you want to understand the author’s intent, right? What was God saying through Paul? What was God saying through James, or whoever the author is? And so you are observing the text, you’re asking those questions, you’re looking, are there verbs in the text? How many times is God mentioned in the text is Jesus. In the text, where is the gospel? Here are there any commands here? Like, what is God saying? Is this even.. does it apply to me? I don’t want to take passages, let’s say in the Old Testament, where let’s say Deuteronomy, where there’s curses and blessings, and I’m just kind of like putting it upon me as a Christian, right? So, what’s the context? And then, is there anything I can pull from this, any application, and what I have found is over time, as you learn to study the word of God, even when you read the Bible devotionally, you’ll do that work in your mind, right, you’ll be able to have an understanding of, okay, what the author is saying, and you’ll just kind of look for that. Where’s the Trinity? Or you ask those theological questions as you read, even devotionally.

Gretchen Saffles
That’s right. One thing that I have learned is that the more you taste Jesus, the rest of the world loses its flavor. So, if you want to develop a hunger for God’s word, you’re not going to do it by reading lots and lots of books, or by scrolling on your phone, or by following all the Christian accounts, even though there’s so many good things out there, but if you want to grow hungry and to taste what it is like to know that He is God and He is good, then you need to be opening up His word, and I want to end us today with the invitation that Jesus has given us to come, and he’s not saying to come with everything all together, come when you’ve got your to-do list checked off, come whenever you’ve got your act together, come whenever everything is going well, and when it’s quiet, and when you have a candle and coffee, and all of these things, no, he says to come, and he invited his disciples to come when they were mending their nets, when they were collecting taxes. Jesus says to come, and so that is the invitation, sisters, is come to Jesus, and it doesn’t have to be first thing in the morning, it can be in the middle of the night when you’re up. It can be in the middle of the day. Christ says, “Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters, and he who has no money, come buy and eat, come buy wine and milk without money and without price. This is Isaiah 55 one. Come to him, and he is ready. He is ready to receive you and to teach you His word and to guide you in His truth that lasts forever. Thank you so much for joining us today. We have loved having you here, and we hope that you all just have the blessed time and the best time at the rest of the conference.

Blair Linne
Yeah, the Lord bless you guys. Thanks.