[討論] Freedom from Quiet Time Guilt

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Freedom from Quiet Time Guilt

The rare beauty of Weakness Christianity

Greg Johnson, St. Louis Center for Christian Study





1. The Diagnosis: Quiet Time Guilt

I recently watched as a congregation I love was spiritually raped. A
Christian ministry came into the church for a three-day program whose purpose
was to encourage believers to pray more. During one of the breakout sessions,
a man expressed his frustration with unanswered prayer. He had faithfully
prayed with and for his daughter for years, and still she was not walking
with God. He was broken, depressed, perhaps more than a little ashamed. How
does God in his grace speak to this man? A bruised reed was crying out for
help.



“You need to try harder. You need to pray more.” That was the message he
was given. I was enraged. Having known this church for many years, I was
horrified. What I was hearing was what one seminary professor calls sola
bootstrapa. Self-reliance¾We pull ourselves up by our own spiritual
bootstraps. The teachers who said such things surely meant well. The problem
was not a lack of sincerity on their part. The diagnosis is far more severe.
The problem was heresy. Any heresy wounds the soul.



When I look upon the evangelical world today, I see millions of sincere
believers who are loaded down with false guilt by teachers who fail to grasp
the basics of biblical prayer. To sharpen the point slightly, Christ’s sheep
have been lied to. They have been told that prayer is a work that we must
perform in order to get God to bless us. As heresies go, this one is often
subtle. Prayer has become a work rather than a grace. The result has been a
loss of joy in prayer.



And prayer is not the only grace we’ve turned into a work. Personal Bible
study has become a source of bondage as well. A whole generation of
Christians has been told that God will bless them if they read their Bibles
every day, as if the act of reading the Scriptures were some kind of magic
talisman by which we gain power over God and secure his favor. This is not
the religion of the Bible. This pervasive belief that God gives us grace as a
reward for our devotional consistency is antithetical to the religion of
Jesus Christ. Prayer and Bible study—what evangelicals for the past century
have called the “quiet time”¾have become dreaded precisely because they
have been radically misunderstood.



It’s ironic, but the Quiet Time has become the number one cause of defeat
among Bible-believing Christians today. At one time or another, nearly every
sincere believer feels a deep sense of failure and the accompanying feelings
of guilt and shame because he or she has failed to set aside a separate time
for Bible study and prayer. This condition is called Quiet Time Guilt. And it
’s a condition with many repercussions. The shame of Quiet Time Guilt
manifests itself in even deeper inability to fruitfully and joyfully study
Scripture. Prayer becomes a dread; Bible study a burden. The Christian
suffering from Quiet Time Guilt then despairs of seeing God work in his or
her life, until finally he or she simply gives up. He may continue outward
and public Christian commitments like church attendance, but secretly he
feels a hypocrite. What is the root of Quiet Time Guilt?







2. The Culprit: Legalism

The root of Quiet Time Guilt is legalism. Often when we think of legalism, we
think of the petty man-made rules that have so often strangled the churches—
rules against dancing or drinking or makeup or ‘secular’ music. But these
legalistic rules are merely an outward sign of a deeper legalism of the
heart. When prayer and Bible study are thought of primarily as duties (‘
disciplines’) rather than as grace, both prayer and the study of Scripture
become unfruitful in our lives. We put ourselves on a performance treadmill
and cease relying on God’s grace to sustain us. We trust in ourselves and
our consistency, becoming proud if devotionally successful—or despairing
because of our inconsistency. Either way, our spiritual self-reliance
short-circuits the inexpressible joy of life in Christ. The quiet time
becomes a human work whereby we think we gain—or lose—God’s daily favor.
When we’ve started our day with Scripture, we presume that God’s blessing
will rest upon us because of it. When we fail in our quest for devotional
consistency, we feel we’ve short-circuited God’s grace in our lives.
Quiet-Time Guilt.



If this describes you or anyone you know, the situation is far worse than you
think. Jesus condemned the Pharisees for this very attitude about Bible
study. “You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them
you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me”
 (Jn 5:39). Yes, that’s what Jesus said. Bible study can be a sin. The
Pharisees assumed the Bible a book of rules or principles for living, but
failed the grasp it as a story about God’s love for his people. The quiet
time can drive you far from God if you fail to understand that the Scriptures
are a story about grace. The Scriptures are a story about Jesus Christ, the
man of grace. His works—not our works—are the center of the biblical story.
And this Jesus gives grace daily to those who fail him. How you approach the
Bible—as needy sinner or as self-reliant Pharisee¾says a lot about the
state of your soul.



Just like Bible study, prayer too can be sinful. Remember what Jesus said
about the Pharisee and the tax collector. The one saw prayer as a work, the
other as an expression of need. The one who merely expressed his neediness to
God—the expression of our neediness being the heart of true prayer—that one
went home right with God.



To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on
everybody else, Jesus told this parable: “Two men went up to the temple to
pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood up and
prayed about himself: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men—
robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. I fast twice
a week and give a tenth of all I get.’

“But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to
heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’

“I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before
God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles
himself will be exalted” (Lk 18:9-14).



Often we assume that if we really had it together and could approach God
without sin, without failing, with only pure spiritual successes to offer,
then God would somehow delight in our prayer more. The opposite is true. If
you approach God in that manner, you approach him as his enemy. We are all
fallen. If we presume to approach him as something more than needy, dependent
sons and daughters, God rightly takes offence. There’s nothing more
dangerous than the pride of devotional consistency.





3. The Remedy: Weakness Christianity

There are two religions calling themselves evangelical Christianity today:
Strength Christianity and Weakness Christianity. Strength Christianity is
that religion which places both feet squarely on the Bible and proclaims, “I
am strong. I sought the Lord. I’m a believer. I’ve turned away from sin. I
read my Bible and pray every single day. I’m for God!” Weakness
Christianity, by contrast, places both knees squarely on the Bible and says,
“I am weak, but the Lord has sought me. I believe, but help now my unbelief.
I fail and am broken by my continued sinfulness. Have mercy on me, Lord, and
grant me favor, for apart from you I can do nothing.”



Those who pursue Strength Christianity will never find joy in God, for they
will never find God. Our Father refuses to be approached in that manner. They
will find only increasing religious pride and secret hardness of heart. On
the outside, they will project a picture of righteousness. They’ll have it
all together. They’ll be spiritual. But only on the outside.



For those who stumble across the rare jewel of Weakness Christianity,
however, there is provision beyond what we can possibly imagine. Our
suffering, our failures, our weaknesses and disappointments all gain an
incredible spiritual significance. God never says he’ll be glorified in our
religious accomplishments. But he does promise that his power will be made
perfect in our weakness (2 Cor 12:9).



Neediness is the heart of biblical religion. When we honestly lay our
brokenness before God, we’re surprised to see a radically different message
in the Bible. While we had perhaps expected a to-do list from Holy Writ, a
program to make us righteous, or a divinely sanctioned self-help book, we
instead see a shocking message that centers on our God and his grace to his
broken people¾not about us and our performance and expected rewards. And
when we approach God in brokenness—Weakness Christianity—we find a
radically difference vision for prayer. Prayer is not something we do—a
performance designed to get something from God. Instead, it’s merely a free
and honest confession of our neediness to God and our spoken reliance upon
him for each and every blessing. When you stumble upon Weakness Christianity,
you realize that true religion is all about God’s grace, not about our
devotional consistency.





4. The Shocker: Grace for the Christian

This grace is for you right now, now and tonight and tomorrow and next week
and forever. The deadly assumption made too often among those who claim to
heed the Scriptures is that grace is only for non-Christians. Grace is what
God offers to people who don’t know Christ. Grace is what makes us
Christians; but once we’re Christians, we live by our own resources. This is
why advocates of Strength Christianity so often sound like evangelical
Christians. They really do believe that God offers grace to unbelievers who
will turn to God through Jesus Christ. And they’re right on that. What they
wrongly assume, though, is that the Christian life begins by grace, but
continues by human works.



I’ve seen this confusion many times. I found it ironic that the very same
prayer program that so hurt the church I love included within it an
absolutely wonderful children’s program. This at first puzzled me. The
children who attended were pointed to Jesus, reassured of God’s love for
them, and encouraged to rest in God’s mercy and total acceptance in Christ.
In the adult activities, by contrast, people were told to try harder, to
persevere, to do better, to be more consistent and to pray more, so that God
could bless them. The children heard, “God did it,” while the adults were
told, “Just do it.”



Why the difference? The difference was simple. These teachers were assuming
that the children of the church were not yet Christians (…an assumption I
would question). God offers non-Christians grace. The adults, however, were
committed Christians. The Christian’s relationship with God rests not upon
God’s grace, but upon his or her performance, particularly the performance
of the ultimate devotional duty, the daily quiet time. This assumption¾that
grace isn’t for Christians¾is spiritual venom, which is keeping millions of
Christians in bondage to self-reliance, guilt, shame, and despair. Quiet Time
Guilt is the great epidemic among Bible-believing Christians today.



If you think the purpose behind this little tract is to absolve you from the
call to pray or the need for Scripture, think again. My purpose is to free
you to desire prayer—to desire God. I want you to long for the pure message
of the gospel, spelled out on page after page of the Bible, and to find the
joyous freedom found in Christ. Prayer is a grace, not a work. It is a
confession of our neediness to God, not a proof that our “relationship with
God” is going well. If you think that God will not bless you today because
you missed your quiet time, this has been for you. If subtle legalism has
left you in bondage so that you no longer hunger for God’s word or freely
call out to him in prayer, then hear this: God has already chosen you,
pronounced you righteous, adopted you into his family, and promised to finish
his work in you. Perhaps you have been lied to in the past. Now it is time
for the truth to set you free. Free to be needy. Free to fail. Free to
approach God without dread. Free to delight in him rather than in your
performance.



But I have a few more theological reflections to share before you leave. Keep
reading.





5. The Surprise: The Quiet Time is Optional

Imagine for a moment you’re meeting a Christian friend. “How’s your
relationship with God going?” they ask you. “Well, I’m struggling with my
attitude about my job—but God is teaching me to be content and to not gossip
when people rub me the wrong way.” A silent stare greets the words, your
inquisitor’s eyes staring you up and down. After a moment of awkward
silence, the question comes again, “But how is your relationship with God?”
 Hmm. What wrong with this picture?



Perhaps this has never happened to you. But I’ve found contemporary
Christians are often more concerned about my ‘relationship with God’ than
with my relationship with God. Whose idea was it to define the sum total of
my relationship with God as my devotional consistency? Your quiet time is not
your relationship with God. Your relationship with God—or, as I prefer to
say, God’s relationship with you—is your whole life: your job, your family,
your sleep, your play, your relationships, your driving, your everything. The
real irony here is that we’ve become accustomed to pigeonholing our entire
relationship with God into a brief devotional exercise that is not even
commanded in the Bible.



Yes. That’s what I said. The daily quiet time—that half hour every morning
of Scriptural study and prayer¾is not actually commanded in the Bible. And
as a theologian, I can remind us that to bind the conscience where Scripture
leaves freedom is a very, very serious crime. It’s legalism rearing its ugly
little head again. We’ve become legalistic about a legalistic command. This
is serious.



But no misunderstand what I’m saying. My goal isn’t that we pray and read
the Bible less, but that we do so more—and with a free and needy heart.



Does the Bible instruct Christians to call out to God in prayer? Absolutely.
“Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for
this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus” (1 Th 5:16-18). But this isn’t
a command to set apart a special half-hour of prayer; it’s instruction to
continually call upon God. Elsewhere the Apostle calls us to pray: “Do not
be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with
thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which
transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ
Jesus” (Phil 4:6-7). But notice that the focus here is not on the
performance of a devotional duty, but on approaching God for grace—for our
heats and minds to be guarded by him. Paul’s burden is that we would rely
upon God in every circumstance and therefore have peace, rather than relying
on ourselves and finding ourselves captive to the anxiety that accompanies
self-reliance.



Does the Bible command us to read our Bibles every day? No. Not really.



What Scripture actually instructs is that we meditate on God’s word all the
time. Consider the godly man in Psalm 1. “His delight is in the law of the
LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night” (Ps 1:2). This is not
exactly the same thing as reading the Bible every day. Personal Bible reading
is one—and only one—way we to meditate upon God’s word. At this point it’
s helpful to consider the difference between a good idea and a biblical
mandate. A biblical mandate is something that God explicitly or implicitly
commands in Scripture. Loving your neighbor is a biblical mandate (Mt 5:43).
Moving to Philadelphia to work in a homeless shelter, by contrast, is not a
biblical mandate. Rather, it’s a good idea, a wonderful possible application
of the biblical mandate to love your neighbor. But moving to Philly isn’t
the only way you can love your neighbor. Similarly, meditating on God’s word
is a biblical mandate. The daily quiet time, by contrast, is a good idea, a
wonderful possible application of the mandate of biblical meditation.



It may surprise you to know that the concept of the quiet time as a command
is a modern invention. It’s only in recent centuries that Christians have
been able to actually own Bibles—the printing press and cheap paper have
given us more options so far as biblical meditation is concerned. But
remember that most Christians throughout history have not owned Bibles. They
heard the Bible preached during corporate worship. They were taught the Bible
in the churches. They memorized the Bible profusely—a first century rabbinic
saying stated, “If your rabbi teaches and you have no paper, write it on
your sleeve.” But for most Christians through history, biblical meditation
took place when they discussed the Bible with family and friends, when they
memorized it, when they listened very carefully to God’s word preached. The
concept of sitting still before sunrise with a Bible open would have been
very foreign to them.



We have so many options today, why do we get hung up on the quiet time?
Listen to Christian teaching tapes. Invest your time in a small group Bible
study. Have friends over for coffee and Bible discussion. Sing and listen to
Scripture songs. Read good theology. Tape memory verses to the dashboard of
your car. And pray throughout your day. I always reserve the drive to church
on Sundays as a time of uninterrupted prayer for my pastors and elders, for
those leading worship, and for the peace and purity of the church. Certain
landmarks around town remind me to pray for certain churches, Christians I
know, or causes God says are important. I suspect I spend more time praying
in my car than on my knees. (Though I love praying on my knees as a concrete
display of my dependence on God, I can’t do this in my car without causing
an accident.)



If you have a regular quiet time, don’t stop. You’ve found a wonderful way
to meditate on Scripture. You’ve set aside a specific time to call upon God
in prayer. But if the quiet time doesn’t work for you, that’s okay. You
should not feel guilty since you have not broken a commandment. The quiet
time is an option, a good idea—not a biblical mandate. If the quiet time isn
’t working for you, there are other options as well. All of them are good
ones. The key is to rely on God to accomplish his plans, a reliance expressed
in prayer and fed in Scripture. You have all kinds of opportunities to call
upon God in prayer and to meditate upon his word. He loves you and delights
in your expressions of weakness and dependence. He is glorified in your
weakness.





6. The Theology of Prayer: Means of Grace

So what exactly does prayer do? That’s the question I’m often asked. There
are several wrong answers to this question. Some assume that prayer furnishes
God with the information he lacks. God doesn’t view it that way. He not only
knows what’s going on now, he knows what will be going on next week. Indeed,
he even ordained what will be going on next week¾the Bible speaks of “the
plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his
will” (Eph 1:11).



Neither is prayer an attempt to convince God to do what he wouldn’t
otherwise do. He will grant our requests only insofar as they accord with his
eternal purpose—his will. “This is the confidence we have in approaching
God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we
know that he hears us—whatever we ask—we know that we have what we asked of
him” (1 Jn 5:14-15).



And I hope we’ve dismissed the idea that prayer shows God how much we love
him! It’s not a work, but a grace! But often we think that prayer is
something we do to obligate God to bless us. This is the subtlest of errors,
for it resembles the biblical teaching. Indeed, it is a caricature of the
biblical picture of prayer. Grace-empowered, grace-motivated prayer does
bring blessing, but prayer isn’t a work we do that obligates God to give
blessing. It’s a subtle difference, but an important one. Prayer is a means
of grace, not a work to merit grace.




Theologians have classically called prayer and Scripture (along with the
sacraments of baptism and the Lord’s Supper) means of grace—highways along
which the Holy Spirit tends to travel. The means of grace are the normal
instruments God uses to accomplish his saving work in and through us. Does
prayer change things? Yes, because God changes things, and prayer is an
expression of our reliance upon him to accomplish his purposes.



I remember about six months ago calling upon God in prayer about my finances.
Starting a not-for-profit teaching ministry is hard work, and church missions
committees would often rather support a missionary doing evangelism than one
who is training believers. One evening I called out to God with great
urgency. After a year of support raising and teaching, I could still only
afford to teach half-time while working another job, and even the funds that
had enabled that year of half-teaching were almost all gone. “Father, this
is your ministry, not mine. If you have raised me up for this, then something
must change. I cannot go without food. I cannot fail to pay my rent. If you
wish me to teach, you must grant the resources to do this. If you do not
enable me to teach, I will not teach. Apart from you I can do nothing.”



Was I manipulating God by threatening to stop teaching? No. And being a
sovereign God, he wouldn’t have been impressed. Rather, I was confessing to
God my utter and total dependence on him to fund my work.



The next day, after eight months without any new support, a new friend took
me out for coffee and told me he felt compelled to support me at $100/month.
That same day, I received a note from an old friend in another part of the
country pledging monthly financial support. When I checked my email, I had
received a message from a member of my church who had since moved away,
telling me a $1200 check was in the mail.



Did my prayer force God’s hand? No. All of this was already in the works
long before I prayed. But when I confessed my neediness to God, he was
pleased to provide for me. Prayer was the means of grace, not a work I
offered for reward. And God was glorified in my weakness. God is faithful to
hear our prayers, and he delights in answering them. Prayer is one of the
basic freedoms Christians have, and freedoms aren’t given to leave us in
bondage. There is a cure for Quiet Time Guilt. That cure is the gospel of
Christ, in whom we have redemption. Gospel—our need and God’s provision—is
the heart of biblical prayer. God will care for us. We belong to him.



http://gregscouch.homestead.com/files/Quiet_Time_Guilt.htm

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