God's Love Language: Quality Time

Speaking God’s Love Language: Quality Time

I Kings 19:1-16

            After seeing in Luke 10 that the one thing that God longs for from us is that we love Him with all of our heart, soul, strength and mind, we have been looking at how to love God using the five love languages described for us in the book “The Five Love Languages” by Dr. Gary Chapman. Last week we looked at Words of Affirmations and how to say to God how much we appreciate what God has done and is doing for us.

            Today we look at Quality Time. Dr. Chapman describes this as time spent focusing on the person. Spending time with them through sitting and listening to them, doing things with them, and simply showing them through your focused attention that they are important to you. It is illustrated well by a story I ran across last week. Daddy can I buy an hour. To this boy, time with his Dad was more important than anything else. Dr. Chapman in his book, tells the story of a woman who declared that she wished that her husband would give up his career, along with all the trappings of his success so that she could have more time with him. Giving a person your time is a precious gift and for those who’s love language is quality time, it is more precious than gold. 

            Since God speaks all of the love languages, then, another way that we can love God with all of our heart, soul, strength and mind is by giving God quality time. In our passage today, we see two ways that Elijah and God spend some quality time together.

            Elijah has just come from a remarkable victory. He has proved to the elders of Israel, once and for all, that the God of Israel is real, and that Baal, the god of Ahab and Jezebel is not. It should be smooth sailing from here, right? Well, any observer human nature will tell you that a person will not easily give up a deeply held belief, even when confronted with proof that it is not true. Jezebel is not ready to concede that she is wrong, so she lashes out at Elijah, declaring that he will be dead in twenty four hours. You would think after what he had been through over the last three years, that Elijah wouldn’t be worried. God had taken care of him at every turn. For some reason, I can’t explain it, he falls into a deep fit of depression and runs away. It as he runs, he realizes that God has come with him. He crawls under a bush and tells God exactly how he feels.

            Here we see the first way to spend some quality time with God, although it is not what it seems at first. In his whining at God, he is telling God that he wants to spend some time with him. He has a running conversation with God. I learned about this back in seminary when I had a job driving a semi-trailer truck. I was driving across western Wyoming, going to make a delivery in Salt Lake City, when I was struck by the beauty of that particular sunset that I was watching. Without thinking, I said “Wow, God, you have really out done yourself today.” In that moment I realized that what I was doing was recognizing the fact that God was with me, even in western Wyoming. I could have a conversation with God at any time or any place and know that God was with me. So, I started having these conversations with God, to share what was on my heart and listen for what God might want to say to me. I started turning off the radio and inviting God to spend some time with me. This has spilled out into other areas of my life, where I have this running conversation with God.

            God responds to Elijah and tells him, through a messenger, that they need to spend some quiet time together. God gives him some food to provide the strength he needs to get through the interim time and tells him to come meet him on his turf. Horeb was the mountain that Moses  received the Law from God. The people spent forty days camped at the foot of the mountain, as Moses spent some quality time with God. Now God was sending Elijah to that same mountain. When he arrived, he found a cave and set up camp inside. Then God begins the conversation.

            “What are you doing here?” God asks and Elijah tells God how he sees things. ‘I am the only one left. Those pathetic people that you love have rejected you and me and now they are trying to kill me.” God listens patiently and then says, go the front of the cave, Elijah. I want to show you something. God then proceeds to put on a display of power that is every bit as impressive as the one on Mt. Carmel, just a few weeks before and ends it with what is literally translated, “a voice of fine silence”. Through this display, God is saying to Elijah, “look again at who I AM. See my power and my gentleness. Know that I can protect you from everything you might face, and will always be there in the stillness around you. In this quiet time with God, he is rejuvenated and sent back into the world, ready to face the challenges that are the
re.

            That is what spending quality time with Jesus can do for us. I know I can get overwhelmed with problems and wonder how everything is going to work out. Then worry can set in and I can find myself feeling sorry for myself, like Elijah. It is then that I especially need to spend some quality time with God. To tell God exactly how I feel about where I find myself. But quality time with God does not stop with me telling God about me. I need to listen. The way that is done is by picking up this book (the Bible) and spending some time looking at God. In this book I will see the power and majesty of God. I will see God’s provision for people who step out in faith with God. I will see how human beings have hurt God through their actions. I will see God seeks reconciliation with the human race. Most importantly, I will see the love God has for me that pervades everything that God does, love that forgives us and invites us into God’s loving embrace. As I read this book and ask God to speak to me through these words, it shows God to me in a way I have not seen God before, or it reminds me of who God really is and it gives me the courage to stand up and step out in faith again, trusting that God is God.

            After God and Elijah spend this quality time together, God then invites him to take that quality time with him. He tells him that in spite of what Elijah might think, God is still at work in the world. Go and be a part of it. If you watch carefully Elijah, you will see me. No matter what you think, I am not done with you or this world.

            God invites us to do the same thing. To go on a kind of scavenger hunt. As we get out of bed each morning, start looking for what God is doing. Spend that quality time with God, keep the conversation going through the day and be on the look out for God’s hand at work.

            The biggest lesson we can learn from our passage today, however is that this quality time is important to God. God did not insist on this time with Elijah to put him in his place. God wanted him to know that their relationship was important. God used this moment when he was willing to listen to show Elijah again who he was and invite him to invest in quality time with him.

            Robert Boyd Munger describes this well in his booklet, My Heart Christ’s Home. In this booklet, he describes our heart as a house that we invite Jesus into. Each room contains a part of our life. As he is showing Jesus around his house they come to the drawing room. He says this: (read the drawing room).

            God longs to have quality time with us, to show us who He is, to keep up that running conversation with us and to help us see His handiwork in our lives and our world. We just need to invite Him. Today, this week, this month, the rest of this year, invite God in for some quality time.