Ways to grow in your time alone with God
Pick a time and a place. It might be in the morning at home or during a long commute, or even over your lunch break, or at a convenient time in the evening. Times and places can differ for different people. It should still be consistent for you. In Matthew 6:6 Jesus is clear that it should be consistently alone, not exclusively but consistently.
Listen before you speak. On any given day God may choose to move or “speak” in some unexpected way through his Spirit. But God has told us how he speaks, the only truly trustworthy way we hear his voice. 2 Timothy 3:16 “All Scripture is breathed out by God”. Read something from the Bible before you pray. When you sit down to pray, let God speak first. Let him have the first word. Put his living and active words into your ears, and let them shape and inspire what you say back to him.
Prioritize the spiritual over the circumstantial. Physical needs are important, but they pale in comparison to our spiritual-emotional and eternal needs. Does that mean we will never have to worry about or spend time on our physical needs? Absolutely not. It means life is mainly about unseen realities. They are our deepest and most enduring needs.
Don’t be afraid to stop and pray now. Prayer should be prioritized and scheduled, but the beauty of our newfound freedom and mercy in Christ is that prayer can happen anywhere. It should start alone with God in your prayer closet, but it never needs to stay there. When you feel the impulse to pray, seize it. Take it as the prompting of the Spirit.
Identify your prayer circles. When I say prayer circles, I’m not talking about circles of people that pray in a group, but concentric circles of people in your life. If prayer is the most important thing we can do for someone, shouldn’t we structure our schedules to do that for the most important people in our lives? The rings should not keep us from praying for the random stranger we met yesterday. They’re just meant to keep the consistent people in our life consistently before us in prayer.
We assume God’s not interested in or doesn’t have time for the small details of our day. We wait to pray about something until it becomes serious enough for God to care about. Don’t be afraid to pray big prayers and small ones.
Be willing to ask one more time, God knows what’s best for you, and He’s listening. Don’t be afraid to pray and ask Him, again, one more time