Quiet Times (3) - Engage your brain with your heart!

We have shared two tips on quiet times already:
Tip#1 was: Always ask God to help you when you have your Quiet Time!
The Holy Spirit will help us to hear God’s message!

Tip#2 was: Always reflect.
Talk to your soul! Quiet down and ensure that God’s message reaches the control centre of your being.

And now Tip#3: Engage your brain with your heart !

Whoever is wise, let him heed these things and consider the great love of the LORD. Psalms 107:43

The fact that our Quiet Times are about fellowship with God, sharing our innermost questions, desires and needs with him and listening to his comforting, loving and directing voice, does not mean that we should leave our brains, our thought-processes, our learning abilities and our insight outside! As much as we fully commit our hearts, emotions and passions, we should also commit our ability to concentrate and understand to this process through which we enhance our intimate relationship with the Lord!

The ancient Church leaders called on us to contemplate God. If "contemplate" is not part of your regular vocabulary, use consider!
Consider is a word that the Scriptures uses!

Psalm 107 is a psalm that recounts the history of God's dealings with Israel. The call to consider God's love comes at the end of the psalm.
In Psalm 8 the psalmist considers the wonders of the heavens and everything God has made, thinking about God’s greatness and the strange truth that mankind is more important to God than any of the natural wonders.
In Psalm 119 we are called many times to consider God's Laws.
In Isaiah 41:20 we are called to consider God's greatness compared to the futility of idols.
Jeremiah calls people to consider their ways in the light of God's awesomeness (2:19).
Jesus reminds us to consider the beauty of the lilies and thus learn about God's provision.
In Romans 11:22 we are urged to consider the kindness and austerity of God.
In Hebrews 12:3 we are urged to consider the example of Christ in the face of hardship.

We are to think about God! We are to think about his remarkable works of creation and his sustenance of everything, including ourselves! Most of all we need to think about what the coming of God to us in Jesus Christ means: God’s anger about our sins that Jesus carried, God’s grace by which we are forgiven in Christ, God’s power by which we are enabled to win through the resurrection power of our Lord, who owns all authority in heaven and on earth. We are to think about the meaning of being filled with the Holy Spirit and that the Spirit enables us to follow the example of God’s Son.

We are to think about God with our brains awake and sharpened. We are to consider his revelations in nature, in Scripture and most of all in Jesus Christ, and conclude that God is good and that we are saved and safe!

Remember now Tip#3 on Quiet Times: Engage your brain with your heart!
Soul seeking worship, engaged with our intellectual considerations, results in complete surrender of heart and mind to Christ. And Worship plus Consideration equals Contemplation!

(Thanks to Theo Groeneveld whose devotions on this topic gave very specific direction to the thoughts in this series on Quiet Times).