Balance Is a Myth: Why Alone Time with God Is Your Greatest Anchor
When everything feels overwhelming, time alone with God becomes your steady place.
Balance in life is an illusion.
The secret to a life well-lived is found in spending time alone with the Lord. This time with Christ allows Him to shape every other area of our lives.
Culture spreads the message that we should fill our lives to the brim with every ingredient we can find. We work ourselves to the bone and exhaust our time, giving up precious moments with our families and children. We often put our spouse to the side and stop pursuing quality time with them. We fill our lives with pursuits that offer no real gain or eternal value in return.
We try to balance all the areas of our life, hoping nothing will fall. Friend, balance cannot be sustained over the long term. If you walk outside and try to balance yourself on the top of your fence, if you are able to do that at all, there will only be a short amount of time that you can maintain that position. Eventually, balance succumbs to the necessities that arise.
The same happens in our spiritual walk, family life, church life, work life, and more. Friend, I am not arguing for greater time management. Neither am I trying to say that I have it all figured out. But there is one thing I have discovered that changes everything.
Your alone time with the Lord is the strongest anchor of your life!
Your alone time with Jesus affects your walk with God, it enhances your family life, changes how you engage with your church family, and improves your work life by infusing you with wisdom to handle the load placed upon you.
Jesus practiced this. He spent large amounts of time with His Heavenly Father, pursuing relationship. The time He spent with the Father directly impacted the way He lived on a daily, even moment-by-moment basis. You can see through the Gospels that Jesus made time with the Father His number one priority. Often, He withdrew from the crowds to spend time with the One who matters most.
Matthew 14:22-23 TPT—As soon as the people were fed, Jesus told his disciples to get into their boat and to go to the other side of the lake while he stayed behind to dismiss the people. [23] After the crowds dispersed, Jesus went up into the hills to pray. And as night fell, he was there praying alone.
Jesus valued this alone time with the Father. I submit to you that His prayer time was the basis of all the miracles, teachings, and healings He performed. They came from hearing the voice of the Father in private. The book of Mark gives us even more insight into a possible reason why Jesus valued alone time with His Father.
Mark 1:35-37 TPT—The next morning, Jesus got up long before daylight, left the house while it was dark, and made his way to a secluded place to give himself to prayer. [36] Later, Simon and his friends searched for him, [37] and when they finally tracked him down, they told him, “Everyone is looking for you—they want you!”
Jesus got out of bed long before daylight to have uninterrupted time alone with His Father. Verse 37 tells us why: “Everyone is looking for you—they want you.”
Have you ever felt that way—everyone wants a piece of your life, a piece of your time, a piece of your energy? They are looking for you, and they have an uncanny ability to find you! The key to having an anchor in your life is tying yourself to something stable. Jesus is the cornerstone, the rock that is higher than us, the eternal One. He is never moved or shaken. He has vast power to meet endless needs. When we consistently come before the Lord in secret prayer, private, alone prayer, it changes us.
Alone time with the Lord touches every part of your existence—body, soul, and spirit. I know testimonies of healing that came through prayer. I have been healed personally simply by spending time with the Lord in prayer. Our souls, which comprise our mind, will, and emotions, are brought back into alignment with the Lord as we seek Him in prayer. Not the least of which is our spirit-man, that eternal part of us, which aligns with God when we spend time alone with Him.
The truth is the Holy Spirit touches every part of us and rearranges us during the time spent with God in prayer. Many people struggle to spend over thirty seconds in prayer, but I want to encourage you to develop your prayer life beyond this.
Ways to develop your alone time with God:
Ask the Holy Spirit to help you pray
This is one of His ministries to us. He will bring things to your heart to speak to the Lord if you simply open your mind and heart to His leadership.
Pray the scriptures back to God.
Pick a psalm and put it into language that prays the words of scripture back to the Lord. God is always open to His word. When His word is prayed from your lips, heaven pays attention.
Find a place that limits distractions.
Most often nowadays, I will get up early in the morning or stay up late into the night because both of these times allow me to spend uninterrupted time with Jesus. You might start by getting up just a little earlier than usual before the workday begins. Is it a sacrifice? Yes. Will it pay you back many times over? Yes, and yes again.
Make part of your prayer time worship time.
Spend time actually praising the Lord. Again, the book of Psalms provides an awesome example of this.
Spend some time simply being silent.
Part of prayer that we often miss is listening for the Lord. He desires to speak to you and tell you things. What He has to say is important and affects all the other parts of your life. I have found that my alone time with the Lord produces the ideas and solutions to problems. Alone time with Him, listening to His voice, provides the encouragement we often need to keep walking through our difficulties.
Let’s agree in prayer:
Lord, help me to develop an alone time with You that is the most valuable part of my life. I pray for help in this area. Jesus, I want to really know You and learn to talk to You at a deeper level than ever before. Holy Spirit, I ask for Your help! Scripture says You will help me pray and that You know the mind of the Father. Fill me with the words and the desire to seek God above all. In Jesus’ name. Amen.