Our Top Tips For Developing a Quiet Time as Teens
As much as Millennials try to deny it, as teens we get REALLY busy too! Between school, sports, chores, church, hobbies, friends, family, eating 24/7, etc.! It’s honestly hard to find time to spend alone with Jesus. However, hard doesn’t mean impossible though! While we totally empathize and understand how hard this may be, we believe that with God’s help, you and I can get together some time to spend in the Lord's presence! Here are our top tips for developing a thriving quiet time as a teenager!
.Know That It Is Possible.
We’re sure you’ve heard this verse 5,000 times, however, we want you to hear it 5,001 times! Philippians 4:13 KJV says this, “I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.”
How come we always look at this verse as a cliche or a little kids’ verse? This should really be the verse that we resight in every difficult situation! Look. I’ve (Mckenzie) been there before too. You strive to spend time with the Lord, but day after day you tell yourself you’re going to start, and suddenly a month went by and the only words you got from God were filtered through your youth pastor. Nothing against church! But as Christians, we can’t thrive on just Sunday school lessons. We need to get with God and have a one on one conversation with Him often! Expectantly the way the world is trying to lead us these days. I’m not saying I’m perfect at having my quiet time often, but I can assure you that even if you feel like no one else struggles the way you do, or you're the exception to not being able to make time for the Lord, I PROMISE! That’s not true! This verse right here tells us that we can do ANYTHING (that is within God’s will) with His help! Once we realize this, it makes it a lot easier to really start getting a quiet time together.
.Don’t Just Think About It! Pray About It.
Before we start with any more tips… We have a tip to help with the tips! Matthew 7:7-8 KJV says “7 Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you: 8 For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.” God is able, wanting, and ready to bless you with a committed quiet time routine! Ask Jesus to help you get the passion, time, energy, and materials together to spend time with Him. Ask Him to help you crave Him and His word! This is something that honestly helps me and I know it can help you. You don’t need to go to the altar, get down beside your bed on your knees, or even close your eyes and bow your head to ask Him. Just simply pray to yourself right now, “Jesus, please help me spend more time with you. Please help me crave your Word.” It’s that simple! There’s nothing special about the way that we worded it. Change up the prayer if you want! Just reach out to Him!
.Figure Out Why.
Whether it’s reading my Bible or trying to figure out a math equation, knowing why I’m doing what I’m doing really helps me do it. And not only do it but do it with effort! It helps me actually want to try my hardest at what I’m doing! Unless, of course, I figure out why I’m doing what I’m doing and the reason is stupid and unnecessary *cough* *history*... Totally joking-ish!! Anyway! We don’t have enough time to dive too deep into the reason we should be spending quiet time with God in this blog. We want to encourage you, friend, to look into it for yourself and try and get a grasp on why this is important. We do however want to give you a good place to start! Here are a few verses to read through!
Psalm 119:105 ESV “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.”
Romans 10:17 KJV “So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.”
2 Timothy 3:16-17 KJV “All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.”
James 4:8 KJV “Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double minded.”
I just finished reading a blog post about devotional time from ”Whole Hearted” and I want to encourage you to read it after this one! I’ll link it at the end of this blog!
.Get Together Your Plan (but be patient with yourself).
I know for a lot of people, without intentionally making plans to do their quiet time, it just won’t get done. While I’m sure some of you can just fly by the seed of your pants to get anything done, that may not be working for the majority of us. So having a good foundation plan is important for succeeding. Depending on your personality, you might want to grab a bullet journal, open the notes app on your phone, or just grab a pencil and paper, because we have some questions you can answer!
Where?
Our advice is to find a place where you can be alone and don't have many (if any!) distractions around. So will you do it at your desk, in your closet, at the kitchen table, in the living room, on the front porch, on your bed, in your car? Or will you do a mixture depending on the day?
When?
I (McKenzie) have two little brothers, two little sisters, and one older brother who all doesn’t like it whenever I’m not in the same room with them. You could use the excuse “Awe!! That just means they love you!!” but I’m going to go with it’s just because they’re noisy! And trust me! Saying “I’m just doing devotions” won’t work. Because then they’ll still try to make up ten thousand excuses as to why they need you to go help them or do something with them RIGHT NOW! So for me personally, I need to try and make sure I have my devotions done before they even wake up. Luckily for me, they all sleep in until a little after nine, so I don’t have to get up too early! Again! You have to be intentional about making time for Jesus. So will you get up an hour earlier, stay up half an hour later, use up your lunch break, or start on devotions right after homework?
While I’m sure different times in the day have different benefits, everyone I’ve ever heard talk about when the best time to do devotions is always in the morning. Even Jesus would go off to be with God early in the morning.
Mark 1:35
“And in the morning, rising up a great while before day, he went out, and departed into a solitary place, and there prayed.”
I believe that starting my day with God is most profitable because I have Him and His Word on my mind all day. I want to encourage you to first try to do devotional time in the morning even if you're not sure if that’s a good option for you. If that doesn’t work out, there are definitely different ways you can start your day with Jesus that doesn't require your full attention. That way you could do these things while getting ready for school! Remember, these are all just suggestions and my ideas. We all have our own ways to walk with the Lord!
Listening to worship music
Listening to a podcast
Reading a short blog post
Meditating on a verse
How?
Last but not least! How will you go about your quiet time? What will you use to guide your devotional time? Will you use anything at all? Will you start or end with prayer? Will you do both? Where in the Bible will you read? Who will you go to if you have any questions? For me personally, I don’t have a set thing I work on during my quiet time. I have a bunch of reading plans, journals, a list of verses I want to memorize, Christian books, and devotionals. So I kinda just use whatever I think I need that day or whatever seems most interesting that day. If that’s how you are, that’s totally fine! Just having an option/options will help a lot whenever you go to sit down and start. This actually leads right up into our next topic!
Be patient with yourself!
Before we go into our next topic, however, let’s first talk about having grace on ourselves if we miss a quiet time. For some people like myself, whenever you plan to do something and you don’t, it makes you feel like a failure or like it’s just not possible. It can get you discouraged and make you not want to try anymore. Something I want to remind you all is that we shouldn’t spend time with God just so we can check it off our “do good list”. It’s to develop a thriving relationship with The Father! Don’t misunderstand me here, but this isn’t something that we’re “required” to do every day. Yes, it’s encouraged, and we should obey, talk, love, and listen to Him daily, that doesn’t always have to be in the form of devotions alone.
We will forget to do our quiet time or just not make time for it as we should. The important thing is that we just start again. Even if we’re starting again for the millionth time! Never stop chasing after a personal relationship with God!
.Get An interesting Devotional/Reading Plan.
It can be hard to find good devotionals that will get you intrigued and really want to read it. A couple things I find that help are: Find a devotional that is based on something you enjoy. For example, I love horses (if you’ve met me you are already well aware😂) and I have found a couple different devotionals that are horse-related. If there is an animal you like they might just have a devotional out there that is related to that animal (I can’t promise they will have a devotional about sloths or something like that but you never know🤷♀️). Another thing is, I used to really like watching Duck Dynasty when I was a kid and Sadie Robertson has written a few devotional-type books. I like reading her books because she talks about her family and I just enjoy it because Duck Dynasty used to be my favorite. I hope that makes sense (at least it does in my head😂) and I hope that it helps you guys in finding a devotional that will intrigue you.
My usual reading plan is, I read one chapter in my devotional and then I also read one chapter in my Bible. I find that if I read several chapters in my devotional and Bible, that I stop comprehending what I am reading. That’s why I only read one chapter in each book. You might be different, and be able to read several chapters and still remember what you read (If you can then I am jealous😂).
I think reading one chapter and fully grasping what I read is better than flying through the book and not remembering a single thing.
.Start A Prayer Journal.
Reading your Bible isn’t the only thing we should be doing during our quiet time. It’s just as important to talk to God as it is to hear from Him. I’ve heard so many people talk about how important it is to write down your prayers. So often Jesus answers our prayers and we just don’t realize it because we forgot what we prayed for, to begin with!
My mom was telling me (McKenzie) how whenever I was younger I would pray for another sister or brother. I had totally forgotten that I used to pray for that, and now here I am with another little sister AND brother!
Another reason I find it handy to write down prayers is that it keeps me on track. This may not be the case for you, but whenever I go to pray, the majority of the time my mind drifts off. I either forget that I’m praying or don’t know what to pray for. You could either just write as you pray, write out your prayer, or have a list of things you want to praise God for or pray about!
Some may prefer to use a notebook or plain journal and others may choose to use a journal designed for praying! While there are many prayer journals and DIY prayer journals out there, I personally use Coffee and Bible Time’s method. As much as I’d love to tell you guys all about it, due to the fact that we still have more sections of this blog to finish, I’ll just leave you with links to both of theirs and the DIY versions I use at the end!
.Go Somewhere Alone.
I’ve already talked about how if I don’t get up early to do my devotions, any other time I would do them it would just be interrupting. I do believe that God still loves spending time with us whenever others are around, and if it’s not possible to do them alone all the time, we should still press forward even if that means noisy backgrounds. Still, we don’t have to look too hard to see that He loves whenever we get ALONE with Him! I think it’s easier to really meditate and listen to the Holy Spirit. Jesus was constantly going to spend time with God by Himself. (Matt. 6:6, Matt.14:23, Luke 5:16, Mark 1:35). I believe that these verses weren’t just added to show us what Jesus did, but also encourage us to do the same. We see in scripture (1 John 2:6) that we should strive to be more like Jesus, and something that helped Jesus in His spiritual walk with The Father was by going to be alone with Him!
.Make It Fun And Personal.
Something that motivates me to do my devotions is to use things that are creative and organized! This is honestly something that I do to motivate myself to do anything (school, Girls For Jesus :), chores) so it just makes sense to modify my quiet to be more personal. I love bullet journaling and planning out my quiet time before I get started. Maybe you’re someone who loves the outdoors! Bring your Bible and a journal on a hike with you and do your devotions on the top of a mountain! Are you more of a homebody? Use a podcast to start off your quiet time on your comfy couch and go to God’s word and read the scripture that was mentioned. Let me guess. I bet we have some sports fans out there! Meditate on a verse while running, shooting some hoops, or kicking the ball. For all of our creative peeps, you could worship with some worship music while sketching or Bible journaling. You don’t have to always sit down and read a passage and be done for the day. You don’t just sit down and listen to your best friend talk for 15min. and then go about your day. No, we like to spend one on one time together with our friends doing things we enjoy. While God’s Words should be the focus of our quiet time, it’s ok to bring some hobbies with you to spend time with God. The most important thing is that we’re getting God’s words in our hearts and in our minds!
.Ask Other Friends What They Do.
All of my friends I often hang out with are Christians. While I know that, it’s easy to forget! I know that God gives us good godly friends for a reason! Proverbs 27:17 says “Iron sharpeneth iron; so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend.”. I totally believe that we shouldn’t just go by what our peers say whenever it comes to spiritual topics, and we should always go back to The Word to double-check things. With that said, this verse right here shows us what good godly friends do! They help each other spiritually! They help each other learn and grow! They’re there for each other whenever they fall and pick them back up. This verse doesn’t just apply to adults, but teen Christians too! I know for me, most of my friends are all about a year or two apart from me, so it’s kinda hard to get some well-seasoned wisdom whenever you’re all the same age. So in some situations, I may go to a parent, youth pastor, teacher, etc. Still, I think there are so many Christian teens who could learn from each other. One thing is how to do our devotions! This is something that our teen friends can relate to us. We all have school, chores, and hobbies to keep up with, so we can each relate to not always knowing how to find the time to do our devotions. I feel like a lot of teens also just don’t know where to start with developing a quiet time. This is when we can sharpen each other! Ask a few friends to go into detail on how they make time for God and how they spend that time with Him. Maybe they don’t have a routine down either. Then you both could work on it together by encouraging one another and praying for each other!
.Get Accountability.
Everyone gets busy, and it can be difficult to juggle everything in our lives. Between church, school, jobs, family, and more, it can become pressuring to find the time to finish it all. I (Natalee) know this from personal experience. I hate to admit it, but sometimes I’ve put quiet time on the back burner in order to get other things done. This is why it is important to have accountability. For those who don’t know, accountability is something that will help you make sure you complete a task. The most effective tactic that I have found is finding an accountability partner. This is a close friend or family member that will simply ask you, “Did you finish your quiet time today?” By doing this, your accountability partner reminds you to spend time with the Lord, as well as themselves. Another important tactic that I have found is having the same quiet time day. It may be a good idea to set an alarm on your phone for a specific time each day, or spend time in the Word right when you wake up or before you go to sleep. Did you hear that? That’s right! Quiet time doesn’t always have to take place in the morning. When I first began reading my Bible every day, I wanted to be like those other Christian girls on YouTube. The ones who get up at 5:00 am with their coffee and a blanket to read their Bible. While that can be great and relaxing, quiet time is about spending time with our Savior. To do that fully, you must find something that works best for you. Spending time with God has no boundaries, especially on what time you do it. That is why accountability can be a great tool to keep us focused on our quiet time.
.Change It Up When Needed.
We pray that you have a plan together for how you can start doing your quiet time or at least you have a good foundation of ideas on how you could start! Before we finish off with some questions we first want to let you in on a little secret… Are you ready for it? It’s OK if you have to change up your quiet time! Whether you just started doing your quiet time one way for a week or have been doing it for years now, It’s totally appropriate to change up your quiet time with the season you’re in. Especially at the beginning whenever you’re trying to find out what works best for you, you might have to try something new daily for a little while. Don’t get discouraged if your plan doesn’t fit you like you thought it would or like it did. Just pray about it and start from scratch again. Go through the questions we asked on how you’ll do your quiet time. Keep what worked from your previous plan and ditch what didn’t!
We know that this is something that a lot of teens struggle with (We do too!), but we totally believe that with the help of Jesus Christ we can succeed! We’re praying for you and your walk with the Lord! We pray that you’ll never stop seeking the Lord and you’ll always strive to spend time with The Father!
.Last Thing(s) We Want To Leave You With.
Proverbs 14:23 ESV ”In all toil there is profit, but mere talk tends only to poverty.” Planning your quiet time won’t get the job done! However, once we start putting in the work of actually doing it, then we will start experiencing the blessings of spending time with God!
Have you accepted Jesus as your own savior yet? (We talk more about that in this blog!! https://girlsforjesus.mozello.com/blog/params/post/2340759/stop-thinking-of-death-as-the-end ) You could spend all of your time reading your Bible and praying, but without the Holy Spirit living inside of you, you can never a. Go to Heaven to live with Him for eternity or b. Experience God in the most rewarding way and have a personal relationship with Him.
Why do you want to develop a thriving quiet time? Why is this important to you?
What actions will you take to start your own personal quiet time?
Have you prayed and asked God to help you in this area?
Do you have any questions a youth pastor, parent, or we could help you with (We’d love to help you get some answers! Our email is girlsforjesus1@gmail.com)?
Here’s that blog post from WholeHearted McKenzie mentioned earlier: https://wholeheartedquiettime.com/2021/09/02/tend-your-garden/
Here’s Coffee and Bible Time’s prayer journal:
(original version) https://www.coffeeandbibletime.com/product-page/prayer-journal
(PDF version) https://www.coffeeandbibletime.com/product-page/pdf-prayer-journal
(SPANISH - PDF) https://www.coffeeandbibletime.com/product-page/spanish-pdf-prayer-journal
(FRENCH - PDF) https://www.coffeeandbibletime.com/product-page/french-pdf-prayer-journal
(GERMAN - PDF) https://www.coffeeandbibletime.com/product-page/german-pdf-prayer-journal
Here’s Coffee and Bible Time’s prayer binder: https://www.coffeeandbibletime.com/product-page/prayer-binder
Here’s the DIY prayer journal McKenzie uses: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15BoCfZK0Ew&t=1332s
How can you be “For Jesus” for the rest of the day?