Make Room for Quiet Time

Jordan McKinney

Lately I have noticed that my mind has been a bit cluttered. I have been filling any and every moment with some sort of noise or entertainment. The best image of this came just last week when I woke up.  

Part of my household’s morning routine is that I start the coffee in the morning and make sure all of the family’s lunches for the day are packed and ready to go. Well, on this particular morning, I got up and went into the kitchen to start the coffee, but I caught myself jumping on YouTube to put on a video to watch while I was getting everything prepped. This in and of itself isn’t bad, but it was part of a larger pattern that God wanted to show me. In that moment I realized that I had lost all the quiet time that I had before the holidays began in November. 

What I had been doing before the holiday was memorizing scripture and reflecting on it throughout the day when I had any quiet moments. This was a great time for me to meditate on God’s word, and to pray and listen to the Lord. That morning, God called me out on the fact that I had filled in every quiet moment I had with stuff. I was either listening to an audio book, podcast, or YouTube video every free moment I had. I was even playing videos when cooking food. 

I feel like I was challenged to go back to a routine of meditation and prayer. These small moments throughout the day are important in how I connect with Jesus. It is usually in the quiet moments, when nothing is going on and I let my brain wander and wonder, that God speaks to me the most. I was reminded of Psalm 1 which says, “Blessed is the one who does not walk in step with the wicked or stand in the way that sinners take or sit in the company of mockers, but whose delight is in the law of the Lord, and who meditates on his law day and night. That person is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither—whatever they do prospers.” 

So, what I have begun to do is fill in those moments with either quiet reflection or with worship. I have been enjoying a group called “The Corner Room,” which takes Psalms and passages of scripture and writes music to turn them into songs. This past week I have noticed that my mind is clearer, and my focus is where it belongs again: on Jesus.  

If you are where I was a week ago - if you are finding yourself in that endless scroll too often, or you just have been filling in every moment with noise - maybe switch up your routine, add some meditative time back into your schedule, and get your focus back on Jesus.