Joel Osteen Podcast - The Importance of Quiet Time | Joel Osteen

Episode Date: October 6, 2023

Just like our bodies need rest, our minds need a break from the demands of life. When you set aside time to let your mind rest each day, God will use that time to refresh and restore you.Your best days are still ahead, and together we can make a difference in this world with the message of God's hope and love.To give visit JoelOsteen.com/GiveHope Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ to listen to new episodes of the Joel Osteen Podcast ad-free and a whole week early. Start a free trial now on Apple Podcasts or by visiting siriusxm.com/podcastsplus. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hi, this is Joel and Victoria. Thanks for listening to our podcast and thanks for supporting the ministry. If you enjoyed today's message, why don't you be a blessing and share it with a friend? We appreciate you and pray for God's very best in your life. Well, God bless you. It's a joy to come into your homes.

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I'd like to get started with something funny each week. And this was sent to me by a 94-year-old woman that watches us every week. And see what you think. An 85-year-old widow went on a blind date with a 90-year-old man. When she returned to her daughter's house later that evening, she seemed upset. The daughter asked, Mom, what's wrong? She said, I had to slap him in the face three times. She said, you mean he tried to get fresh?

She said, no, I thought he was dead. All right, hold up your Bibles and say it like you mean it. Ready? This is my Bible. I am what it says I am. I have what it says I have. I can do what it says I can do. Today I will be taught the Word of God.

I boldly confess, my mind is alert, my heart is receptive. I will never be the same. In Jesus' name. God bless you. I want to talk to you to you. about the importance of spending quiet time alone each day and learning to let your mind totally relax. We live in a very noisy society. We've got cell phones always ringing. We drive to work into traffic with the news constantly on. You get home and the TV's blaring and doorbells ringing.

Sometimes you've got kids that are screaming. One of the biggest stress inducers there is is simply noise. And when we are constantly being bombarded by all this clutter, it's so easy to get out of balance. We have to learn to get quiet. And David said in Psalm 23, the Lord is my shepherd. He leads me beside the still waters. Well, let me ask you, how long has it been since you've been beside those still waters, where you got quiet, where your mind wasn't racing, thinking about your problems, thinking about what you need to do?

See, we can let our bodies rest, but we've got to learn to let our minds rest. And every day, we should have a period of quiet time where we get alone and do nothing more but get quiet and enjoy the silence. Not get away and pray, not get away and tell God all your problems, not get away and think about what you need to do. No, just a time to get alone and let our minds totally unwind. Jesus said in the book of Matthew, come to me all you that are. are weary and I will refresh and restore your souls. Well, our soul is our mind. Our soul is our

emotions. And God is saying, if you'll just come to me on a regular basis and get quiet and tap into my peace, then I'll refresh you and restore you. It's one thing to rest physically. I know people that take vacations, but they never rest their minds. They're always worried, always uptight about something. And if you're not careful, you can do it. that so long that you don't ever really unwind. You can get to the point where you don't even know how to relax. And that will start to affect you physically. You can't sleep well at night. You've got digestive problems. You're uptight down in here. And it's all because you're never getting back to that place of peace. And that's not the way our bodies were meant to function.

If we're going to stay healthy, then we've got to take time every day to get alone to the quietest place we can find and just totally put our mind in neutral and relax. You've got to get beside the still waters. Peace rebuilds your energies. Being quiet and calm and still helps to restore what the world has pulled out of you. A lot of times we think of relaxing as unwinding, but really when we get quiet and we get back to that place of peace, a better way to describe it is it's balancing us. And most of the experts say that we need at least 50,000. 15 minutes of quiet time for every 24-hour period. And I don't know of one person that's really happy and really peaceful

that doesn't have some type of quiet time on a regular basis. And you may want to do it in the morning when you first get up. Just start the day off in peace. Don't make the mistake of rushing around, being late, getting upset, and all of a sudden at the very beginning of the day, you're on edge. Now get into that place of peace. get up and maybe read your Bible and pray. And then just take a few minutes to enjoy the silence.

Just close your eyes or maybe you want to watch the sun come up. Maybe you want to just enjoy the trees, enjoy God's creation. But don't think about anything. Just have a time of peace. And this is something that so many of us have forgotten how to do. I know my personality is to always be on the go. I'm very driven. I'm always thinking about the next thing that I should be doing.

And I used to think, man, taking time to get quiet, taking time to be alone, let my mind unwind, that's boring. That's a waste of time. I don't want to do that. But now I've realized that's not a waste of time. That's a part of being balanced. That's a part of staying whole mentally and emotionally. And the scripture says here in Psalm 46, verse 10, be still and know that I am God.

You need to get still every single day if you're going to expect God to refresh. you and re-energize you. This is not something that's just nice to do. If you don't have anything else going on. No, when you get quiet, when you let your mind totally relax, that should be a priority in your life. That's what keeps us in balance. And some of you are real good at giving out to everybody else. You're always on the go, taking care of your children, doing things for others. You've got a heart of goal. But listen, you've got to learn to take care of yourself. your spiritual and emotional well-being should be your number one priority, should be way up there on your list. And understand, nobody else can take care of yourself for you.

And you're doing your family a disservice if you're always emotionally and mentally worn out. You need to take time for yourself. Get alone every day. Get quiet. Put your mind in neutral. Let God's peace restore you and re-energize you. I know this man that's a CEO of a very long. corporation. He's got an extremely busy schedule. People are always vying for his attention.

But every day, once in the morning and once in the afternoon, he goes into his office, closes the door, turns off his cell phone. He asks his secretary not to interrupt him. And he takes what he calls a 10-minute peace break, where he just closes his eyes, puts his mind in neutral, and totally unwinds. And he says, that's what helps him to stay balanced. Well, he's tapping into that peace. He's tapping into that inner silence. That's where God refreshes us. And do you know, you can take a 10-minute vacation in your mind.

Even in the middle of a busy day, if you can just get quiet, and picture yourself sitting by an ocean. Picture yourself watching the sun go down and soak up God's peace. Don't go through the day all upset and on edge and irritable. Learn to get yourself back into balance. It's interesting back in the old days when people got, They'd send them to a sanatorium to recover. And that was a place where they could totally relax and totally unwind.

And they found when they did this that their immune systems would get much stronger. And there's no telling how much sickness and disease we could avoid if we just learn to stay balanced. If we just take a little quiet time every single day. I was reading about how our muscles have two states, a stress state and a relaxed state. When they're in that stress state, the blood vessels constrict, and this increases our blood pressure. But when we're relaxed, that muscle tissue lengthens out, and the blood vessels open up, and of course that will reduce our blood pressure. I remember the first time I ever had a massage. This was years and years ago. The masseuse, he kept telling me again and again to relax. Hey, just relax. And I thought to myself, I am relaxed.

He told me afterwards, in his 15 years of doing that, he had done. never felt anyone as uptight as I was. He didn't mean that as a compliment, not tight like working out, but that was tight from being stressed out. But as I said, my personality type didn't know how to relax. I had trained myself to always be on the go. And I had to make some adjustments in my life. Now I take time every day to get quiet, to meditate, to just totally wind down physically as well as emotionally. And I learned to get some of the clutter out of my life. And I learned to get some of the clutter out of my life. I had to turn off the radio in the car sometimes. I learned to turn my TV off and not to always have to have something to do. Sometimes it's good to just allow

ourselves to be bored. Don't get to that point where you always have to have something entertaining you where every spare moment of the day you run, turn the TV on or you run go do that chore. Now that's a habit that you've developed and it's going to end up keeping you out of balance. You've got to understand it's good to have time. where you just do nothing. It's healthy to have times where you just have a two-hour period to just totally let your mind relax. Don't put anything into it. Don't go read a book. Don't go call your friend. Just put it in neutral. Hey, you say, Joel, I really need to clean my garage, or I really need to go run these errands. No, there will always be things to do. You have to make

it a priority to take time every day to relax. And not just physically. I'm talking more today about emotionally and mentally. A friend of mine told me how one day the power went off in her home. And this lady is very high-strung. And she got so uptight and so on edge, just waiting for it to come back. After about 15 minutes,

she finally thought to herself, well, I can't just sit here. There's nothing to do. I can't make any calls. I can't watch TV. I can't walk on my computer. She just couldn't stand that. So she decided that she'd get in her car and drive across town to her relatives where they still had power. But she got in

garage and she soon found out that the garage door wouldn't go up. She said she finally got the message. She said, okay, God, I'm going to go back and I'm going to make myself get quiet. I'm going to make myself just relax. And see, we can get to the point where we're so addicted to having something to do. Our mind is always thinking, we're always planning that next thing that we've totally forgotten how to relax. Sometimes we wonder why we're uptight, why we can't sleep at night. No, we need to have regular periods of downtime. Really, we need to retrain ourselves to get quiet more often, to have less clutter in our lives. It's when we're really at peace.

When our mind is really relaxed, that's when God refreshes us and restores us. And some of you, you know you haven't been this way in years and years. From the time you get up in the morning to the time you go to bed at night, your mind is constantly working. You're always worried about that child or uptight about your finances. or maybe you've got a whole lot of stress at work. But no, you've got to make some adjustments. The more the world pulls out of you,

the more you need to get back to your place of peace. The more time you need to spend in silence, in God's presence. It's in that stillness that God renews you and gives you the strength that you really need. I heard somebody say, every night before we go to bed, we should totally empty out our mind.

We should let go of all of our worries, all of our disappointments, what we didn't do right, the things we have to do the next day, we need to totally unload that and go to bed with our mind at ease, at rest, at peace, knowing that God is in control. And it's so important what we put into our minds right before we go to bed. Don't lie there in your bed and watch the news and let that fill your mind and think about all the killings and all the accidents and all the turmoil in the world. how can we expect to sleep well after that?

In fact, studies tell us the last things we watch or the last thing we think about before we go to sleep. Subconsciously, that goes down into us, and many times we dream about it. It affects our sleep. And we wonder why we toss and turn, we can't sleep well. Could be because what we're putting into our minds, we're worried about the project it were.

We're upset with that child. Well, let me encourage you, go to bed each night, meditating on the goodness of God. Before you go to sleep, just close your eyes and say, Father, thank you for another good day. Thank you that I can lie down in peace. Thank you that you have good things in store for me. See, in the day, thanking God for his goodness,

and take it one step further. Start the day thanking God for his goodness. When you get out of bed in the morning, first thing you should say, Father, thank you for another good day. I'm excited about today. I know you've got good things in store. But started in peace and ended it.

in peace. And every day, at least once, maybe you want to do it more often, but learn to empty out your mind. All your worries, all your concerns, all your frustrations, totally unload that and let God fill you with his peace. And it's so important that we get the clutter out of our lives. Why don't you learn to turn some things off? Some of you drive to work every day with the news going on into your mind 90 to nothing. You know every accident and every killing and every score. And you know every score and all this information. No, why don't you try turning that off for a little while and just enjoy the

silence? Give your mind to rest. Or maybe you want to meditate on a scripture. Maybe you want to just enjoy the beauty of God's creation. But it would do us all good to see how much of the clutter we could eliminate from our lives. And don't get me wrong, I love to watch the news.

But that is not healthy to have that stuff going into you 24 hours a day. And I'm asking you today, to take inventory of what you're allowing into your mind. How much peace do you have? How much quiet time do you spend each day? And what kind of adjustments could you make in order to get some of the clutter out of your life?

Remember, it's when we're really at peace that God refreshes us and re-energizes us. And I believe that we should even have a physical spot that we could call our place of peace. That's where we go unwind and let God renew us. I know at my house back in our bedroom, we've got this big green lazy boy chair. It's very comfortable. It's very quiet back there. And every day, that's where I go to spend a few minutes to just totally unwind. Sometimes I'll just lie back and meditate for 10 minutes. Sometimes I'll just look out the window and stare at the trees and enjoy God's creation.

Other times I'll just sit there and breathe real deep and think about the goodness of God in my life. But that's my place of peace. And I have an appointment with it every single day. I find some time that I can go unwind. That's the time I let go of my worries. I let go of my frustrations. I don't think about what I have to do tomorrow. I don't think about the future.

I just get still and learn to enjoy that silence. And do you know I can feel myself being renewed? I can feel myself being refreshed. Being still has a calming effect. You can be all uptight and frazzled. There have been days I've come home where it's been so busy, so hectic, so stressful. But I know if I can just get back to my place of peace and spend 10 or 15 minutes there, I can feel my whole attitude start to change.

Well, what's happening really is I'm just getting myself back into balance. And when you go all day with people pulling on you at work, at home, you're dealing with a whole lot of stressful situations, you too need to learn to get back into your place of peace. You don't have to be there long. Sometimes if you're there 10 minutes to just totally unwind and totally put your mind in neutral, you'll come out of there feeling like a different person. The problem with many of you today is that you're not spending any quiet time to speak up. The only time that you would consider yourself getting quiet is when you pray.

But the mistake most people make is when they pray, they do all the talking. They talk to God like a machine gun giving him all their orders. God, you got to help me do this. God change my husband. God, I fix my boss. God, I need that promotion. God, I need wisdom. God, show me what to do.

God, why don't you ever talk to me? No, you know as well as I do. God can't get a word in edgewise. Why don't you quit doing all the talking and start doing more of the listening? Get quiet before God. Be still and know that he is your God. You've got to come back to that place of peace.

God speaks to us in a still small voice. If you're ever going to hear his voice, you too are going to have to get still. And some of you, the only reason you're not making good decisions, the only reason you don't have clear direction is because you're not taking time to listen. And understand, God already knows our needs before we ask. And even if he didn't, I'm sure that we've told him so many times it's ingrained in his memory. And if you normally spend 10, 12, 15 minutes praying each day, why don't you take part of that time and just get quiet and listen to what God is saying to you?

You may not hear something every single time, but at least you'll get back to that place of peace where God can restore you and refresh you. I know some of my best sermon ideas have come in the middle of the night. I wake up and it's quiet. My mind is at rest. It's totally peaceful and all of a sudden the ideas start coming.

I'll probably get up two or three times a week during the middle of the night and make some notes. knows. Well, I'm sure God would speak to me during the daytime, but the problem is most of the time we're too busy. Our lives are too cluttered. And I've found the more quiet time I can spend and the more peace I can stay in, the easier it is for me to hear from God. The clearer direction I have, the better ideas I get. And you need to make sure that you have your own place of peace. Make an appointment with it every single day. Just go there to totally relax. Don't think anything, just put your mind in neutral. I've learned to just breathe real deep breaths and totally

relaxes. Not shallow breaths. Breathe from way down in here. That naturally relaxes you. And I know at first you may think like I did, oh, that's boring. That's a waste of time. But if you'll just make yourself do it and get into that place of peace, it'll be something that you can't live without. And another great way to relax is to get still and to meditate. I'm not talking about meditating on your problems. I'm talking about meditating on God's Word. You know, sometimes when we think about meditation, we think, oh, Joel, that's far out. That's not for me. You know, we think of the Tibetan monks sitting up there on the hills with their legs crossed, but meditation is all through the Bible. It's very healthy. The Bible talks about how we should meditate on God's word, how we should

keep our mind state on him. And to meditate simply means to ponder the same thing over and over again in your mind. Really, meditation is the same principle as worrying, but when you worry, you are meditating on the enemy's thoughts. You're thinking them again and again. Now, the next time you drive to work, instead of letting the news fill your mind, why don't you pick out a few scriptures and begin to meditate on them? Things like, I can do all things through Christ. I am more than a conquer. I am blessed and I cannot be cursed. Everything I touch prospers and succeeds. See, in Empty your mind of all that worry and just begin to meditate on what God says about you. And let me encourage you as well to create an atmosphere of peace in your home.

Some of you don't even really realize it, but things are always so cluttered at your house. The phone is always ringing off the wall. The TV's always blaring. You sit down to eat dinner with your family, and the dishwasher sounds like a jackhammer. No, learn to create an environment of peace. your atmosphere has a tremendous effect upon you and on your family. I know sometimes at our homes, I've got to put my foot down and say, you know what, it's too noisy around here.

We're going to have some peace. We're going to turn off the TV. Let's turn off the cell phone. We're not going to go running through the house. I don't want anybody banging on the piano. We're going to have some times of quiet. And if you're going to have a healthy home, and more importantly, if you're going to keep your own sanity, you're going to have to do like I do sometime.

and just put your foot down and get more peace in your home. And don't get me wrong, I love activity. I love to have fun. Sometimes after a Sunday service, we'll have a dozen kids over at our house, running, play in, having a good time. And that's all great until about 7 o'clock. Then it's time to have peace. Our son Jonathan, he loves to play his new electric guitar.

He only knows one way to play it, and that's loud. It's not enough that our whole household can hear it. He wants to make sure people across the country can hear it. But be aware of what kind of atmosphere is in your home. As I said, sometimes we wonder why we're uptight, why we're on edge, but it's because there's too much chaos. The phones ringing, the doorbell and just the TV's blaring. No, the overall atmosphere in your home should be very peaceful.

Make the adjustments. And another thing, learn not to bring stress into your home. By that, I mean, what happens at the office? you need to leave at the office. You may have had a real tough day and you're on edge and people didn't treat you right, but don't make the mistake of bringing that junk home. Some people take all their worries and all their frustrations

and they just dump them on their family members. No, leave that at the office. Keep peace in your home. I heard about this man that had a very stressful job and he would come home every night so uptight and so on edge that his family didn't even want to be around him. And finally, he realized what was happening, and he decided to make some changes. And on his way home, about 10 minutes from his house, there was this park.

And so instead of coming straight home and dumping all that turmoil on his family, he would pull into the park and just take five or 10 minutes to totally unwind. That was where he emptied his mind of all of his worries, all of his frustrations, all of his disappointments. That was his place of peace. He had so much pulled out of him during the day. went there to get back in balance, to get quiet, to get peaceful. And his wife said, it's a totally different atmosphere at our home now. It's fun, it's loving, we're happier than we've ever been.

See, don't make the mistake of bringing that stress with you. It doesn't just affect you. It affects you. It affects your family. And I know some of you have very stressful jobs. You work hard, and then you drive in the traffic home 30 minutes, 45 minutes fighting the traffic. But you've always got the news going on, you're so bombarded, so cluttered. Let me encourage you, on your way home, that's the time you need to begin to unwind. Why don't you turn the news off? Turn the radio down, drive slower, breathe deeper, and begin to relax your mind. You've got to get back to that place of peace.

Get back in balance. If you have to pull into a park like that man, take a couple of minutes to totally unwind. But don't make the mistake of bringing that stuff home with you. It's not fair to your children. And it's not fair to your spouse. And parents, I've learned the more peaceful we are, the more peaceful our kids are going to be. We set the tone for our homes. I know one time it had been very noisy at our house, and I could feel myself getting on edge.

And I thought, well, I'm going to go back to my green chair and get quiet and just have a little while to relax. But just as I started going back there, the doorbell rang and some friends came over and their daughter was selling something. So I went and got my checkbook, and I bought that. and we visited a little while. Then Jonathan needed some help with his homework. Then something else came up I had to deal with, and it seemed like on and on and on. Well, finally, I got back to my green chair,

and I sat down and I was ready to have some peace. But I wasn't there 30 seconds until I heard this real, loud, fast knocking on the house. It was so annoying. I thought, what in the world is this? And so I went outside, and do you know right above our bedroom window, there was a woodpecker. And he was just pecking away right there while I was trying to get some rest.

And I thought, man, when it rains, it pours. I said, God, I really love your creation. But this little woodpecker is about to come home to see you. I didn't hurt him. But with a few rocks, I helped him to change his location. But my point is, the enemy will do everything he can to keep you from having peace. He doesn't want you to get quiet. He doesn't want you to be refreshed and restored.

He doesn't want us to enjoy. our lives. If you're going to have peace, you're going to have to put your foot down, be determined, and have it on purpose. And some of you know, you haven't been by those still waters in a long, long time. You hardly take any time alone. It'd do you good if you had to to even hire a babysitter just to get you some quiet time. It says in Isaiah 3015, in quietness and confidence shall be your strength. That simply means when we get quiet, when we get in peace, that's when we're going to have the strength we need to fight the good fight of fame. So let me challenge you again. Take time every day to get quiet. In the stillness, God renews you. The more the world pulls out of you,

the more time you need to spend in God's presence. Learn to get rid of the clutter. Turn off things that you don't need. And every day, make sure at least once you empty out your mind of all your worries and concerns. If you do that, God promises to fill you with his peace. He'll refresh you, re-energize you, rebuild you, you'll experience the victories that he has in store. Amen. How many of you receive it today? Well, I know you do.

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