Let There Be Quiet

Is there a quiet place in your day?  Maybe it's before sunrise--the windows still dark, the air still a bit chilly except for teh warmth of a crocheted blanket thrown over your lap.  The day is fresh and ahead of you, unspoiled, untouched.  Your Bible lies open, your prayers are thoughts and whispers.  Just you.  And God.
Maybe it's sometime in the early afternoon.  The kids are napping.  The traffic still sails by outside where you could hear it if you wanted to.  But you don't.  You're alone for a few stolen moments...enjoying a snack, enjoying a book, enjoying a minute to yourself.
Maybe it's late at night.  The clock that ticked unnoticeably all evening is now regular and audible, your PJs on, your TV off.  You sink into the couch pillows, almost dozing but not ready for bed yet, almost able to put your worries out of your mind, almost too comfortable for words.
Maybe your quiet time is some other time. 
Or maybe it's never.
But it's never too late to make time for it.  Over and over in Jesus' life, you see this one who was so busy, who was caught up in so many stressful situations, who was tugged on and clawed at from so many different people...getting away, stealing off, seeking quiet.
Sometimes it was night--even all night.  Sometimes it was early in the morning, long before his friends and disciples had stirred from sleep.  At the end of a long day or before the start of a new one, he yearned for quiet, for time spent alone with his heavenly Father, for the secret hours his human side needed in order to sort out what was going on in his life.
Angud Jesus himself needed quiet, certainly we all need quiet.
But quiet won't come looking for you.  You'll have to wrestle it away from a world grown noisy and demanding, from a culture that rushes to fill every second with sound and movement and high-speed information.  You'll have to plan for it, draw boundary lines around it, protect it from phone calls and talk shows and even your own impatience.  You'll be tempted to think you can live without it, but you'll only end up joining the rest of us who have had to learn the hard way---through four-day flu bugs and weekend fatigue--that if we don't take responsibility for slowing ourselves down, our bodies will do it for us.
The simple truth is that quiet time spent with the Lord, with his Word and our own hearts laid open before him, will never take more away from us than it gives back to us.  It will always replenish, always add to the life of our days, and most likely even add to the days of our lives.
Enjoy the blessings of being quiet.