One practical tip to help energise your quiet times with God

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Our lives are full of challenges, and the temptation is to merely get up from bed to "get on with it." Is your life marked by that kind of attitude?

Most of us Christians fail to realise that we simply cannot live life without learning to close our mouths and stay for a while in our prayer closets. Some of us are used to sleeping late at night and waking up the following morning, rushing through work and life itself. In doing this, we often forget that we haven't spent time with God in prayer and reading our Bibles, and then consequently obeying God's Word. But when things go awry, we ask, "Why, God? Why?"

Brothers and sisters, I used to be like that, too. We focus so much on the busyness of life that we often brush off our times with God. This should not be. We should instead realise that we will only be effective Christians when we are empowered by our love relationship with God, and we will only be successful when we meditate on and carefully obey His Word (see Joshua 1:8).

The right attitude

Martin Luther, the father of the Protestant reformation movement, once said, "I have so much to do that I shall spend the first three hours in prayer." We should have that kind of attitude!

When we face various challenges with only our strength, we experience much fatigue and stress. Worse, we may even end up failing and unable to overcome the tests and temptations that continually harass us. We need the Lord's help always!

Come to the throne

The Bible encourages us to come to God, since we have Jesus as our Mediator. Hebrews 4:14–16 tells us: "Seeing then that we have a great High Priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathise with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need" (NKJV).

Let us, then, come and approach God and ask for His help.

Come often

We are encouraged to hope in the Lord, because when we do, He will renew our strength (see Isaiah 40:31). Instead of trusting in our own capacity to do what we should, let us trust in God's capacity and goodness to help us. We will find ourselves running without weariness and walking without being faint.

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