My Quiet Time Notebook

My Quiet Time Notebook

I have had several journals, notebooks, and binders for all kinds of things and I just can't get enough of them:) There is just something about having things gathered in one place appealing to me.

Anyway, I have planned to put together a Prayer Notebook but have already filled up several. After seeing the Quiet Time Notebook on the Catherine Marshall site I shared and knowing the purchase isn't in the budget, decided to make my own.

Mine will probably be one of the most basic anyone can think it but I want simplicity. Why? To keep me at it so I'll have a collected place for my quiet time to be recorded. This is a trial run to see if I like the format bec/ I have a part of my closet filled with journals, prayer journals and more. Most were filled up during my daily quiet times. It may be that a simple notebook is what I stick with. I just think trying something a bit more organized might give my times a boost. Plus... it is an excuse for yet another notebook.

If we manage to get my computer glitch fixed keeping us from loading new pictures onto the computer OR into the printer... I will share pictures!

Meanwhile, I'll describe my plans and let you know how closely I do or don't stick to them!

Thin 3-ring binder (have one on hand)

Front of Binder: I hope to print a picture with maybe a Bible verse on the front.

Inside:

Cover sheet: Quiet Time Notebook 2008
A Record of my Daily times set aside to spend with the Lord.
Prayers, Scriptures, Ideas, Thoughts and Listening for the Lord.

First Tab: (haven't decided what kind of tabs I'll use. Either those pre-made ones or I'll cut and adhere some of my own)

Prayer: I'll hand write and/or print concerns, requests, praises, and more. Write out my prayers in the way I've done by habit for some time now:

1. Thank and praise the Lord. I thank Him for the morning, silence, happiness, specific blessings, time with Him or whatever is on my heart.
2. Ask forgiveness of sins. Repent of any known (write them specifically unless they could hurt someone and those are left unwritten) and unknown sins. As His forgiveness, cleansing, and for help.
3. Intercessory prayers. Pray for Blake, our kids and their families, and then requests or needs for and from others.
4. Prayers for the desires of my heart, prayers for help in personal areas. Personal prayer from me to the Lord.
5. PRAISES. I praise HIM just for being HIM in the start of my prayer time and end it praising Him for particular things He has done in our family and for/with others.

There are additions along the way but those are the basics.

Second Tab: Scriptures. Any speaking to my heart or showing me a truth, that catch my eye, make me want to study deeper on and so on.
I write out Scriptures more than anything. There is something rhythmic about reading them and writing out each one. Sometimes, I'll follow with a prayer using the Scriptures I just wrote.

Third Tab: Notes. These can be on Bible study, links to try, thoughts that come to me, distractions to get out of my head, to do's to keep me from losing focus, just notes and more notes. Smile.

If I want, I'll add tabs for inspirational things, prayers from others (there are a few from dear friends I folded and placed in my Bible) and whatever is wanted or needed.

If you have a quiet time notebook or journal you'd like to share about or share a picture of, please let me know! I'd love to see and if you'd like --- share it!

Quiet Time/Thursday

Quiet Time/ Thursday

Online Resources

I know these aren’t extensive but I just wanted to share a small list to keep things simple. I haven’t been diving into all of these sites to know them in and out but from what I did read through… they seem like good starting points. I always tell people to please read with spiritual filters when getting information from the internet so we aren’t easily deceived.
That said, I love finding neat things online and here are the sites I am sharing for our Quiet Time series.


Message Board on Quiet Time
{I haven't checked this out yet other than scrolling through to see the topics. I wanted to spend more time reading the neat threads on favorite Bible study tools and plan to go back for those and maybe some others!}

http://www.quiettimecafe.com/

One ministry explaining what quiet time is or can be:

http://www.quiettime.org/whatisqt.htm

Very affordable books from Christian Book Distributors. One of my all time favorite online places to shop! Don't get to do so very often but I love this store! There is a book on Quiet Times right now for $3.99.

www.cbd.com OR www.christianbook.com

Ideas for and Notes on Quiet Time:

http://www.fbcsmyrna.org/quiettimetips

Another favorite site :) Karla sent me the link to this site a long time ago and I LOVE IT!
Here, the site owners offer free quiet time pages to print!

http://tinyurl.com/4w3vuy

Quiet Time Testimony/George Mueller

Written by: George Mueller

"While I was staying at Nailsworth, it pleased the Lord to teach me a truth, irrespective of human instrumentality, as far as I know, the benefit of which I have not lost though now. . .more than forty years have since passed away.

"The point is this: I saw more clearly than ever, that the first great and primary business to which I ought to attend every day was, to have my soul happy in the Lord. The first thing to be concerned about was not, how much I might serve the Lord, how I might glorify the Lord; but how I might get my soul into a happy state, and how my inner man might be nourished. For I might seek to set the truth before the unconverted, I might seek to benefit believers, I might seek to relieve the distressed, I might in other ways seek to behave myself as it becomes a child of God in this world; and yet, not being happy in the Lord, and not being nourished and strengthened in my inner man day by day, all this might not be attended to in a right spirit.

"Before this time my practice had been, at least ten years previously, as an habitual thing, to give myself to prayer, after having dressed in the morning. Now I saw that the most important thing I had to do was to give myself to the reading of the Word of God and to meditation on it, that thus my heart might be comforted, encouraged, warned, reproved, instructed; and that thus, whilst meditating, my heart might be brought into experimental, communion with the Lord. I began therefore, to meditate on the New Testament, from the beginning, early in the morning.



"The first thing I did, after having asked in a few words the Lord’s blessing upon His precious Word, was to begin to meditate on the Word of God; searching, as it were, into every verse, to get blessing out of it; not for the sake of the public ministry of the Word; not for the sake of preaching on what I had meditated upon; but for the sake of obtaining food for my own soul. The result I have found to be almost invariably this, that after a very few minutes my soul has been led to confession, or to thanksgiving, or to intercession, or to supplication; so that though I did not, as it were, give myself to prayer, but to meditation, yet it turned almost immediately more or less into prayer. When thus I have been for awhile making confession, or intercession, or supplication, or have given thanks, I go on to the next words or verse, turning all, as I go on, into prayer for myself or others, as the Word may lead to it; but still continually keeping before me, that food for my own soul is the object of my meditation. The result of this is, that there is always a good deal of confession, thanksgiving, supplication, or intercession mingled with my meditation, and that my inner man almost invariably is even sensibly nourished and strengthened and that by breakfast time, with rare exceptions, I am in a peaceful if not happy state of heart. Thus also the Lord is pleased to communicate unto me that which, very soon after, I have found to become food for other believers, though it was not for the sake of the public ministry of the Word that I gave myself to meditation, but for the profit of my own inner man.

"The difference between my former practice and my present one is this. Formerly, when I rose, I began to pray as soon as possible, and generally spent all my time till breakfast in prayer, or almost all the time. At all events I almost invariably began with prayer. . .But what was the result? I often spent a quarter of an hour, or half an hour, or even an hour on my knees, before being conscious to myself of having derived comfort, encouragement, humbling of soul, etc.; and often after having suffered much from wandering of mind for the first ten minutes, or a quarter of an hour, or even half an hour, I only then began really to pray.

"I scarcely ever suffer now in this way. For my heart being nourished by the truth, being brought into experimental fellowship with God, I speak to my Father, and to my Friend (vile though I am, and unworthy of it) about the things that He has brought before me in His precious Word.

"It often now astonishes me that I did not sooner see this. In no book did I ever read about it. No public ministry ever brought the matter before me. No private intercourse with a brother stirred me up to this matter. And yet now, since God has taught me this point, it is as plain to me as anything, that the first thing the child of God has to do morning by morning is to obtain food for his inner man.

"As the outward man is not fit for work for any length of time, except we take food, and as this is one of the first things we do in the morning, so it should be with the inner man. We should take food for that, as every one must allow. What is the food for the inner man: not prayer, but the Word of God, so that it not only passes through our minds, just as water runs through a pipe, but considering what we read, pondering over it, and applying it to our hearts. . .

"I dwell so particularly on this point because of the immense spiritual profit and refreshment I am conscious of having derived from it myself, and I affectionately and solemnly beseech all my fellow-believers to ponder this matter. By the blessing of God I ascribe to this mode the help and strength I have had from God to pass in peace through deeper trials in various ways than I had ever had before; and after having now above forty years tried this way, I can most fully, in the fear of God, commend it. How different when the soul is refreshed and made happy early in the morning, from what it is when, without spiritual preparation, the service, the trials and the temptations of the day come upon one!" [1]

Quiet Time ~ Tuesday

Where do I have my quiet times?

This is in transition because I’m moving my desks into another room. Right now and for awhile, I’ve been doing my quiet times either at my desk in my bedroom (just to be close to the computer so I can use my Bible study program and for Matthew Henry’s Commentary --- more on those later) or at the dining room table.

When I move things into the other room (today, hurray!) … I am going to see if there is a place by the window for me to have my morning quiet time.

Previously, I have held my early morning moments with the Lord on my couch with a fire crackling in our fireplace. For safety and space reasons, we had to tear that humble hearth out and how dearly I miss it! I still light a candle during my quiet time as funds allow.

In the evening, I’ve been reading my Bible in the bed from the night stand right before falling asleep.

What I bring or have on hand:

A Bible. I have different Bibles so I take whichever one I want at the time.
A journal I use often for writing out prayers and also for recording Scriptures that speak to me, observations I’ve noted during Bible study, and things like that. I also let any thoughts coming at me flow onto the paper so nothing is blocking my concentration.
These are the basics but I also almost always have a devotional, book based on Scripture, poems, music, and things like that.

My routine:

I guess it is considered a routine since I try to have this time before much else but there is no set time. Like, I always start the coffee first because I like having a steaming cup close at hand to sip on while reading. I almost always start the laundry for the soft background noise. I like my morning quiet times as early as possible but with my thyroid still being regulated… sometimes I cannot sleep at night and it causes later morning rising!

The only other part of my routine is reading the Bible right before dozing off at night from a Bible I keep on my nightstand.

Love,Sandy