quiet time Archives - Sharla Fritz

7 Habits That Promote Soul Rest: Daily Meeting with God

Sharla April 12, 2016

My dad loved meetings.

And that was a good thing because he needed to attend a lot of them. After retiring from his job as a radio station sales manager, he ran for city council and won. In the city he lived in, it wasn’t a full-time job, but it involved a lot of council meetings, board meetings, and committee meetings. And he loved attending them all because they connected him with people.

I don’t always appreciate meetings. But there is one meeting time I always try to keep: my daily appointment with the Lord.

People use a variety of terms for this kind of meeting: Quiet Time. Daily Devotions. Personal Bible Study.

Whatever you call this time with God–keeping this daily appointment is the number one habit for soul rest.

Why? Because soul rest is only available from Jesus. In Matthew 11:28 He invites us:

Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

Now you may say, “But Sharla, I’ve had a quiet time for years and I don’t think it has helped me experience soul rest.”

To which I would say, “I can totally relate.”

For years, I faithfully opened my Bible and had a devotional time in the morning. I love God’s Word so it didn’t seem like a chore. But I often viewed it as something to check off on my to-do list for the day. It was not so much a time for meeting with God as it was an intellectual exercise.

You see, I was looking at my meeting time with God like I viewed other meetings. A time to get something accomplished. (Which is why I don’t like meetings: often there is lots of discussion but not much action.) I needed to view meeting with God like my dad viewed meetings: a time to connect.

We can view our time with God as a duty to be checked off. We can look at it as a time to accomplish something: Read three chapters of the Bible. Memorize a passage. Finish the lesson for Wednesday night’s small group.

But that won’t give us the soul rest we so desperately need.

Instead, view your meeting with God as a time to connect with Him. Keep your daily appointment with Jesus knowing He promises to give you rest. Come weary–receive strength. Come disappointed–receive hope. Come distracted and anxiety ridden–receive peace

The number one habit that promotes soul rest is a daily meeting time with God. But only if we view time with Jesus as a time to relax in His care. A time to experience His peace. A time to receive His love.

Your daily appointment with God is a time to relax in His care, experience His peace, and receive His love. Share on X

Next step: if you don’t already have a daily appointment with God, start one now. (Check out this post on making quiet time a habit.) If you already have the habit of a daily quiet time, add the habit of viewing it as a time to connect with Jesus and receive His rest. Write Matthew 11:28 on a card and post it where you have your quiet time or keep it in your Bible.

For more ideas on soul care, check out my free resource–Soul Spa Kit: 59 Ideas for Creating Your Own Spiritual Retreat. Just sign up for my newsletter in the form below!

When Your Spiritual Growth Seems Stalled: Think About Going To The Spa Instead Of The Gym

Sharla July 21, 2015

After church one Sunday, a member of our congregation jokingly announced that our services would be much shorter if he gave the sermon. He would edit the message down to a few key words:

“Listen up people—do good stuff.”

If he wasn’t joking, I think he may have missed the point. Yet, at the same time I think many of us view the Christian life as a life of doing. I know I did. Even though I received the gift of God’s grace, I still had the feeling that I had to do more in order to please God. To grow spiritually, I needed to put in the time. Ramp up the effot.

I think this was because I viewed Christian life as a gym. Subconsciously I felt a certain repetition of prayers or a prescribed number of memorized Bible verses would automatically make me a stronger Christian. After all, daily doing a few dozen reps of bicep curls inevitably results in stronger arms.

Find out why Christian spirituality is more like a spa than a gym.

But lately, I’ve been thinking that Christian spirituality isn’t actually like going to a gym. It’s much more like going to a spa. At the gym you work. You run. You lift weights. You sweat.

But at a spa everything is done for you. Experts rub the kinks out of your aching back. They soften your rough skin and make your calloused feet look pretty again. All you need to is show up. You don’t have to drag out your determination and willpower to perform your workout routine. Instead, you need to loosen your resistance and ambition for a time and simply receive.

Of course, Bible memorization and prayer and service are all good things—things God instructs us to do. But as I’ve gone a little further in the journey of faith I realize that it isn’t my effort that makes me a stronger Christian—because all of Christian life is a life of reception. No matter how many minutes I spend in prayer or how many chapters of the Bible I read, I cannot make myself more spiritual. It’s God’s Spirit who works out the kinks in my faith. He softens my heart and makes my spirit beautiful again. All I have to do is show up.

It’s the difference between pulling on my resolve to catch up in my read-through-the-Bible-in-a-year plan and sitting down with God’s Word, simply asking Him to give me what I need to make it through the day. It’s the difference between checking off “Daily Devotions” on my to-do list and actually connecting with the God of the universe.

Our Christian growth doesn’t depend on us, but we do need to show up. We need to carve out time in our busy, noisy lives to receive the comfort and love God is continually holding out to us. We need to excavate space in our crowded hearts to receive the grace we so desperately need.

Christian spirituality is a not a life of doing. It is a life a receiving. Receiving from the persistent, compassionate, and tender God who calls Himself my Father.

Next step: Write a prayer of thanksgiving to God that your spiritual growth does not depend on you. Ask Him to show you what you need to receive today.

If you would like more ideas about connecting with God, check out my free Soul Spa Kit: 59 Ideas for Creating Your Own Spiritual Retreat. Simply fill out the form below to sign up for my e-newsletter and receive this free gift.

New Beginnings: For When You’re Not Sure You Want New

Sharla January 28, 2014

When my husband and I moved to Illinois, we lived in a fifty-year-old home that was full of problems. The basement leaked. The windows were painted shut and the well-water turned my laundry orange. I couldn’t wait to get out of that old house. I wanted something new.

After several years of waiting, God gave us the opportunity to build a brand new home. We bought a piece of land and hired a builder. To keep costs down, we did a lot of the work ourselves.

At the time our children were ages five and two. During the five months of construction they spent a lot of time at the babysitter’s house, but we tried to get them involved with the building process by giving them tours of the house at various stages of construction, getting them involved in small clean-up projects, and letting them pick out the paint for their new rooms.

As the house neared completion, we were all excited about moving in—or at least most of us were. One day I took the kids to the house for one last clean-up before the carpet installers arrived. We were sweeping the plain brown sub-floor of my son’s room when he piped up in his two-year-old voice, “Let’s not pretend that this is my room anymore.”

My son didn’t want to move. The new room was an empty space with a rough wooden floor. To him it didn’t look as appealing as his old room with soft carpeting and a comfortable bed. He didn’t want the new because he couldn’t envision the finished project.

Sometimes I act the same way with God. He’s continually transforming me into a new person. But sometimes I resist because I can’t see what that will look like.

God asks me,

Behold, I am doing a new thing;
now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? Isaiah 43:19a

Honestly, I can’t always see God’s new thing. When troubles seem to block my view of my Savior, I can’t see God working.

That’s when I need to remember what comes next in Isaiah 43:19:

I will make a way in the wilderness
and rivers in the desert.

When God is starting something new in my life it’s to show me a way out of the desert I’m in and provide springs of water in the wilderness. His new thing is always good–even though I might not see it right away.

Once my son saw the finished room in the new house he was as excited about moving as the rest of us. The original problem was, at first, the new didn’t look as good as the old.

When we’re facing something new we need to remember that God is always working to make our lives better–even if that new thing still looks like an empty room with a plywood floor.

Next step: Are you resisting the new beginnings God has for you? At times we all struggle against the new because we’re comfortable with the old. But let’s remember that God always desires the best for us.

How to Repair Your Soul

Sharla January 7, 2014

My daughter and her family live in China. They have been studying the difficult Mandarin language for almost three years and are quite fluent now. Which amazes me because when we visit them I am astounded at how anyone could learn such a beautiful, yet complex, language.

Recently I was reading about the phrase ling xiu. In Chinese characters the phrase looks like this:

灵修

and together they mean a Christian’s devotional time. I found it interesting that the two characters have different meanings when they are used separately. Ling means “spirit” or “soul.” Xiu means “to repair.” So fitting don’t you think? Our devotional time with God is our spirit repair time!

Spirit repair.

How desperately I need this every day. The world shreds my soul. Stress tears at the seams. Worry tries to rip my heart apart. And when I try to mend it on my own, the rips just become bigger.

But when I sit in God’s presence and let His Word stitch me back up again, I feel whole. When His Spirit mends the holes my soul is once again intact.

Sometimes we think of our devotional time as duty or a dusty routine. But what if we saw it as our spirit repair time?

Next step: Take time to practice ling xiu or spirit repair time every day. God is waiting to heal your heart.