Joni Eareckson Tada - A Quiet Place in a Crazy World: Drawing Near to God through Prayer and Praise

A Quiet Place in a Crazy World
published by Multnomah Books

1993 by Joni Eareckson Tada

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture references are from the Holy Bible: New International Version, 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All Rights reserved. The NIV and New International Version trademark are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by International bible Society. Use of either trademark requires the permission of International Bible Society.

Scripture references marked NKJV are from the Holy Bible: Authorized Kings James Version.

Scripture references marked NKJV are from the Holy Bible: The New King James Version, 1984 by Thomas Nelson, Inc.

Also quoted:
The New Testament in Modern English. J. B. Phillips 1958.

eISBN: 978-0-307-80552-2

Published in the United States by WaterBrook Multnomah, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House Inc., New York.

MULTNOMAH and its mountain colophon are registered trademarks of Random House Inc.

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v3.1

TO
MARY LANCE SISK AND BUNNY WARLEN

Mary LanceWhen I asked God,

Teach me how to pray, He sent you.

As my prayer mentor,

you have shown me that prayer

is intimacy with God;

and

BunnyWhat a fool for Christ you are,

believing that prayer is no work at all,

but a joy! And what joy you must give

the Father when you pray.

Unforgettable thoughts should never be forgotten.

When I looked back over the manuscript for this book, I recognized timeless stories and insights from some of my favorite friends and authors. You, too, will notice that Charles H. Spurgeon through his unforgettable sermons inspired much of the content. If I had been around in his day, I would have sat in the front row of his church every Sunday. For this reason, I must thank Baker Book House for letting Spurgeon live through publishing his Twelve Sermons on Prayer. Im grateful to Zondervan Publishing House and Steve Estesthe insights shared in A Step Further are still having an impact for the Lord Jesus as new and different readers enjoy this book.

Readers who are familiar with my work may also recognize some thoughts from my earlier book, Secret Strength.

Thanks to my friends at Questar for rescuing this manuscript which originally appeared as Seeking God: My Journey of Prayer and Praise. Had it not been for them, Seeking God would have been lost in the crush of various publishing acquisitions. Im grateful to Questar for helping me expand and reissue the content under this new title.

Finally, Im grateful to Bev Singleton, Larry Libby, and Shari MacDonald for helping to give shape to my words and, ultimately, to peoples prayers.

God meets us in places.

Have you ever thought about it? He has made us as a people who live in time and space. And if He is going to meet with us at all, this eternal, all-powerful, everywhere-present God must condescend to meet with us at a certain location, at a certain time.

The mighty Creator of the universe must bind Himself to a penciled line in my date book.

And the wonder of it is, He does! Down through the centuries, He always has.

He strolled with Adam through the Garden in the cool of the day.

He wrestled with Jacob through a long night by a stream called Jabbok.

He comforted the fugitive David in a dank limestone cave called Adullum.

He stood with a grief-torn mom and dad in an upstairs room, by the bed of their dead (but soon to be alive!) daughter.

He crossed paths with His disciples in the middle of the night, in the middle of the sea, in the middle of a storm.

He meets us ANYPLACE.

There is never a place where He is not. He waits in every room were about to enter. He stands quietly in the back of every elevatorup or downbefore we step through the doors. He lingers around every bend of every path we will ever walk. Hes in the dark kitchen when we get up at night for a glass of milk. Hes in the recovery room when we come out from under anesthetic. On a long dirt road, Hes under the tree in the field where we pause to rest. There is no place too remote, no night too black, no cave too deep, no mountain peak too high for the immediate, awesome, pervasive, loving presence of the Lord our God.

Yes, He meets with us ANYPLACE. But He also meets with us SOMEPLACE.

Somebody once said, I can pray everywhere all the time, because I can pray somewhere some of the time. There is a special, specific place of meeting with God, which is as the bedroom to the bride and bridegroom. A chamber of hallowedness and holiness. A familiar place where weve met Him again and again. Whether its kneeling at the bedside of our Sealy Posture-Pedic or its in the drivers seat on our commute, or at the railing of our sleeping childs crib there is a habitual someplace of meeting God that is more sacred and special to us than a myriad anyplaces.

For me, that place is my bedroom.

Thats the one little spot on this spinning planet where I always meet God. As soon as I wheel into my bedroom and see the side lamp lit, the bed covers pulled back just so, and my turn-at-night pillows on the chair, it all signals a Pavlovian response in my mind. Its time to pray. This isnt just the place where I get eight hours of sleep, this is where God meets me.

We all need such places. We need hallowed chambers in the rambling structures of our lives. In developing that discipline of always meeting God some place, some of the time, we begin to see how He opens up meeting places where we encounter Him everywhere, all of the time. Pray without ceasing becomes a way of looking at every place as a point of encountering the Lord. A holy intersection.

When I was a little girl, I visited my Uncle Vincents house on the eastern shore, near Easton, Maryland. One afternoon Uncle Vince (he was actually an older cousin) took me upstairs to show me his prayer room.

I remember thinking, This is strange. This is a little rigid. God ought to be meeting Uncle Vince on the golf course, like He meets me when I go horseback riding, or when I go hiking with Daddy. How odd that Uncle Vince needs this little room.

Uncle Vinces sacred cubicle was not to my taste. He had found some stained glass from an old church in Easton, and had made tall, vertical windows. He had hung a couple of old, musty tapestries on the fake paneling. There was a little prayer kneeler, and an open Bible on a stand.

It seemed so odd to me. Stuffy. Tacky. I wasnt drawn to it at all. But in later years, looking back, I found myself thinking, How wise of Uncle Vince to have had a place all those years where he met Jesus. Thats probably the reason why he could pray on the golf course and when he went hiking with us. Uncle Vince encountered God every place because he had one place.