A 3 hour quiet time routine for you to consider adding to your life for some time spent with God. We all need some time where we sit and give Him and His word our quiet uninterrupted attention. Life is busy but our relationship with God is the most important one we have so let us all try to incorporate this into our life. You know best whether you can do this full plan daily or weekly, some do a shorter version of 90 minutes daily and do a 3 hour once a week. Some people may split it into two 90 minute daily sessions and use those to begin and end their days. Whatever works for you but be honest with yourself and with God about placing time spent with Him at your highest priority. 

3 steps:

1. Quiet Prayer and Rest Before God

a. Come before God and rest: let thoughts and worries come to your mind and give them over to God.

b. Ask for God to fill you with His Spirit and to refresh you in His presence today.

c. Rest in silence. This will be hard. You may get antsy. It will be difficult to sit in silence before God – but you are encouraged to rest and press into the silence. Because we live in such a fast paced culture, we so often neglect to be still before God. That is when God most often speaks to us. How can we hear God’s guidance and instructions if we don’t be quiet and listen?

d. Focus on being mindful of where you are at right now. Don’t live in the past.

Don’t live in the future. If you are feeling guilty about things from your past, give it to God. If you are feeling anxious about the unknowns of the future, give it to God. This is the perfect time to let feelings and anxious thoughts rise to the surface of your heart. Make a list beforehand if needed. Don’t just shove them away – but talk them through with God and surrender them at His feet.

e. You may feel like you have no idea what you are doing as you sit silently before God and that is totally okay! Don’t let that stop you. Being uncomfortable and feeling inadequate during prayer is normal and even this you should give to God and ask for His help and strength in prayer.

2. Reminding Yourself of the Gospel

a. After your time of prayer and rest, pull out your Bible and open to Romans.

b. We need to focus on the Gospel DAILY. The good news of Jesus Christ dying for us and making a way for us to be in communion with God the Father is the foundation and center of the Christian faith. To go a day without the reminder that you get from spending time in the word of God, in the gospel is like going a day without food. We have all had times where we have gone awhile without spending time in the God’s word and it ended up affecting the way we were living. We weren’t walking in love toward God and others as we should have been. So, while reading Romans, it served as a reminder of the truth that we are all a sinner in need of the grace of Jesus Christ. Reading about the gospel in Romans should help open our eyes to the deadliness of our sin, but also to the abundance of God’s grace for a sinner like us.

i. Read: This is to encourage you to read through Romans. Take one chapter a day. Today focus on Romans 1:1-32. But if you are only going to read Romans today, read Romans 6:1-23 Dead to Sin, Alive to God.

ii. Rest, Think, and Pray: Let God’s word sink into your soul. Chew on His word. Talk to God about what you just read.

iii. Read Again: Read the same chapter again with a child-like faith. Ask yourself the following questions as you read it again:

1. What stood out to you?
2. What is penetrating your heart?
3. What does it say about who God is and what He has done for you?
4. How will the Gospel change your life today?

iv. Journal Prayer: Journal (write) out your prayer after reading this passage. God’s word is God speaking to us – prayer is us communicating back to God! Tell Him what’s on your heart and mind after reading this passage. Pour out your heart before God.

3. Meditation and Prayer Walk

a. Choose a Psalm you want to memorize (if you don’t know which Psalm to choose, Psalm 1:1-6 is often highly recommended. Write down the Psalm (or a part of the Psalm) on a piece of paper. Take that paper with you into nature. Go on a walk, constantly reading and thinking about God’s word.

b. Meditation is the opposite of what the world says meditation is. The world says you should empty your mind. God says you should fill your mind with His truth. Meditation is simply reading, speaking, and focusing on God’s word. Read it over and over again in your mind and out loud. Think about the text. Let the scripture sink deep into your heart and mind. Let it wash over you like a wave of the ocean.