Appointment
Appointment
“Do two walk together unless they have agreed to do so?” asked the prophet Amos (3:3). The New American Standard Bible reads, “Do two men walk together unless they have made an appointment?” Each of God’s children must have an appointed time and place for meeting God daily and devoting themselves to worship, prayer, and meditation in the Word. God made me to be a morning person, and I get my best work done between 5:30 a.m. and 3:00 p.m., but not everybody is made that way. I have successful friends who don’t really begin working until about 8:00 in the evening and keep going until 3:00 a.m. The important thing is that each day we give our very best time to the Lord. Call it what you will—your quiet time, your prayer time, the upward look, daily devotions—it must be an uninterrupted time of fellowship with God in prayer and the Word, a time that sends us into our daily tasks prepared in spirit and happy with the will of God. The most important part of our lives is the part that only God sees. Problems must be solved privately in the prayer closet before they can be tackled publicly. Moses, Aaron, and Hur interceding on the mountain enabled Joshua and his army to win as they fought the Amalekites down below (Exod. 17:8–15).
We must begin our appointment with personal worship, thanking the Father for providentially giving us a new day, thanking the Son for dying for us and promising His presence with us, and thanking the Holy Spirit for the power and wisdom He will give as we face the demands and dangers of life. I like to read a hymn of praise to the Lord that expresses my gratitude far better than I can in my own words, although I believe the Father rejoices to hear His children’s unrefined words of praise.
Finally, we must take time to be holy. Rushing through worship, prayer, and meditation means grieving the Lord. “What! Could you not watch with Me one hour?” (Matt. 26:40 NKJV). Quickly reading a few Bible verses, scanning a paragraph or two of devotional thoughts, and then rushing off to our daily duties means robbing ourselves of “hearing” God’s voice, meditating on what He says, and “digesting” the truth within our hearts. Our daily devotional time is not a marathon in which we try to read a given number of verses each day. There are times when I find myself lingering over one verse and discovering truths in it I never saw before. God’s Word is our food (4:4) and we must chew it carefully, not gulp it down.
Let’s move to that topic now.