What is a Quiet Day?

What is a Quiet Day?

A quiet day is a deliberate intention to be quiet, to rest from all your doing. I'm sure that the ways in which this can be accomplished are as varied as our individual personalities. For example, you may want to incorporate words of praise and adoration; choose to read from the Psalms; listen to the sound of the waves; pick up a long neglected sketch pad and draw whatever comes to mind; lay a blanket out on the lawn and watch the cloud...and so on and so forth. The possibilities are endless. But the quiet would be the special emphasis of the day.

A few years ago a small group of women from my church planned a quiet day. It's hard to imagine, all of us women together without talking, huh? Nonetheless, the idea of a quiet day appealed to enough of us that we had two van loads. The plan was to drive "in silence" to Longwood Gardens in Pa., and once we arrived, we were to disperse and just spend the day in quiet. My personal goal for the day was to listen to God and journal whatever He said to me. Unfortunately the day never happened. Three weeks in a row we planned the trip and three weeks in a row it poured rain on the day that we were to go. After that, our schedules got busy and...you know the drill. It just never happened. Recently a few of us have begun to talk about again and hopefully this time we can pull it off.

Your quiet day doesn't have to take you anywhere away from home, unless the distractions of home would make it virtually impossible for you to experience the quiet.

Maybe by now you're asking yourself, "Why a quiet day?" The answer for me is simple. Our souls need times of quiet for the purpose of restoration. In Psalms 23 David writes, "The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul..." We must take the time to be quiet and still, to allow the Lord to give quietness and contentment to our minds.

I can't remember any conversation I've ever had, with a woman regarding quiet and/or stillness, where she didn't get a longing look in her eyes. Whether we take the time or not, our souls are longing for moments of stillness and quiet. Or...we could call them "Mary moments". It's possible that you are the rare one who has already learned the discipline of quiet. Praise God for that gift! I wish I could say it was me, but it aint! Life is full of constant, yet mostly joyful doing.

In the Gospel of Mark you can read the following account. The disciples had just returned from doing the work that Jesus himself had sent them to do. You know the everyday work of anointing the sick with oil and healing them; casting out demons and calling people to repentance. They had also taken the body of John the Baptist and laid it in a tomb. After returning to Jesus and telling Him all they had done, He says to them, "Come away by yourselves to a desolate place and rest awhile....and they went away in the boat to a desolate place by themselves." Mark 6:31
Ponder that. Pray and ask God to show you how "quiet" can become a part of your life.
Stephanie