A Time and Place

 "But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you." (Matthew 6:6)

"Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed." (Mark 1:35)

The pressures and demands of life and leadership will always be upon us. There will always be deadlines to meet, people to see, things to organise. The example of Jesus to us is tremendous. Even when he was continually faced with pressures and demands upon his time, he always made time to pray. We need to make sure that we make time to be alone with God. The ideal strategy is to plan a regular time in our schedules that we will prioritise above other things. For some people that time will be first thing in the morning, for others at midday, or in the evening. The time does not matter, as long as it is a time when we can be alert and focused on God.

As well as finding the best time, we need to find the best environment to meet with God. We need to find a place where we will be free from interruptions and distractions, so that we can focus our attention upon God. This could be a bedroom or a study, or outside in a park or a forest. Jesus had to find a number of places because of his travelling ministry. Sometimes it was on a mountainside (Mark 6:46), or in a solitary place (Mark 1:35), or in the wilderness (Luke 5:16), at other times it was in the Garden of Gethsemane (Matthew 26:36). The most important thing is to find somewhere where you can comfortably focus on God.