I have been spending extended time with a 20-year-old college student who has a 12-week internship in Victoria, Texas. Every other week, either I drive to see him, or he drives to see me (more the latter than the former). Adrian* came to faith in his Senior year of high school and has been part of a disciple-making ministry in college. To say that he is passionate about disciple-making would not describe what I’ve been seeing and hearing from him
With about half of his internship completed, he has recently begun to disciple Brandon*, whom he met at church in Victoria. As he described his discipling plan for Brandon, some alarms went off in my head. I asked as casually as I could, “So you’re going to dump the truck on him? Everything that you’ve learned in the past two years, you’ll try to teach him in the next six weeks?”
While I don’t like pouring water on somebody’s flame of excitement, I knew from experience that this plan wouldn’t work, especially for two young men who have full-time jobs and minimal free time.
So, I asked Adrian this question: “If you were only able to invest one thing into Brandon’s Christian life, what would that be?” As he thought quickly, he named off at least ten great things that he wanted to teach Brandon. I fleshed out my question: “But what would be the one most important thing to give him?”
This time, I got him down to two things: good things—time in the Word and time in prayer. I then said, “That’s two things. Can you narrow it down to one thing?” He was struggling. He mentioned that he couldn’t judge one as more important than the other. So, I asked a discovery question: “Is Brandon already spending time in the Word and prayer?” He thought there was already some time in both disciplines, but maybe not as much as there could be.
In discipling another person, we often begin by getting them into the Word and in prayer. However, we don’t end there. We show a young believer how to merge those two disciplines together into a quiet time (which may also be known as a devotional time, or time alone with God).
Here’s my conviction. If I have a short time to invest in someone, I can easily think of “everything” he needs to know to live a satisfying, obedient life in Christ. But if I dump the truck, I’m simply giving him lots of information and hoping that it sticks.
Instead, I now prefer (with a couple of decades of dumping everything on someone) to get laser-focused on just one thing: quiet time. Not just give him information about quiet times, and maybe a Seven Minutes with God brochure. Instead, I show him how to merge his Bible reading (at a much slower pace than reading 3 to 5 chapters a day and his prayer life (which won’t rely on a prayer list of friends, family, and personal needs).
You see, a quiet time really is about developing your relationship with God, with intimacy and purposefulness. During a quiet time, you read Scripture to see what God says about himself and what he wants. Then, you pray about the things that you just read about who God says he is and wants. That’s true two-way communication!
Often, we’ve learned to have a “morning watch” where we read enough chapters to follow our reading plan. Then we pull out a list of things we want to pray about. I can just hear God say, “Did you hear anything that I just said? Can you at least acknowledge that?”
That last sentence might sound like a husband and wife “talking” to one another, but not being fully engaged. In all of our relationships, we each want to be heard and understood. Why would our relationship with God be any different?
But here’s the kicker: If I spend weeks of time helping someone understand quiet time. If I have multiple quiet times with him. If he hears me pray in response to what God has said. If he experiences me slowing down to listen well and understanding the King of the Universe. Then, he has a much better chance of having a quiet time when I’m not around anymore!
If quiet time is the only discipline I can invest in a man, God can use that discipline to communicate everything else He wants that man to know or do! Scripture memory is important, and God can tell us that during our quiet times. Witnessing is important, and God can communicate that through His Word.
We can spend an hour a week talking about all the disciplines that a man “could” have in his life, or we can talk and model the quiet time until it becomes an essential part of his life. The former is butter that just slides off. The latter is Velcro that has some stick to it!