In The Room

My husband and I spend so much time together, and I love that! We eat dinner together every night; we make time for movies and our favorite shows; we work together, and I love it all. But one of my favorite things we do together is spend time with Father God. However, in the mornings, since I am usually up earlier, I get my personal time with Father God, and I really need it.

I have made my office, specifically, my little blue sofa, the space where I spend time and meet with my Father one-on-one. I learned the importance of spending quiet time with Father God many years ago when I attended Acts Full Gospel Church. I remember hearing people say they prayed for hours, and I could never understand how anyone could pray that long.

Here’s a funny story: I remember preparing my own prayer room where I was going to spend time with Father God. It doubled as a guest bedroom, honestly, but only if my granny came to visit me. Anyway, this was my prayer room, and I would not wear shoes in that room, chile; it was holy!

I would go in there determined to spend hours in prayer. I would play worship music and sing at the top of my lungs, praying and calling out everyone’s name, thinking I had really been laboring before God for a long time, only to look at my watch and realize it had been 10 minutes! Two songs had played. Back then, it was the Brooklyn Tabernacle, and you know each of their songs was three to five minutes.

Seriously, though, even then, it took me a while to truly understand the beauty of intimacy with Father God. Though I was trying to mimic what I heard in church and what I saw others doing, it was truly only because I desired that level of intimacy.

Eventually, my time in my prayer room changed because my understanding changed. I began to understand that spending time with Father God was not just about how much time I spent—the hours, minutes, or seconds I clocked so I could say how long I had prayed. Nor was it only about petitioning Him or asking Him for something. It was about the relationship and having a place where I could hang out with Him because I desired to be in His presence.

Psalm 91:1 says, “He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.” Over time, I could remain in that space for hours without even thinking about how long it had been. I can remember being in my prayer room for hours and not even realizing how much time had passed until I finally needed to take a break.

Now, I crave that place, and I feel like a fish out of water when I cannot have my quiet time with Him. I literally cannot function without it. It is a beautiful place to be. Jesus said in Matthew 6:6, “But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.”

I believe there is something powerful about setting aside time to meet with Him. Maybe it is five or seven in the morning for you, or maybe your time is later in the day. Whenever it is, make space and make time for Father God. Trust me, beautiful things happen there. You’ll also realize that the space and time become more than prayer time. It becomes quality time with Father God. And understand this, too: you do not necessarily have to come with an agenda: Father, I need this. I need that. I need an answer about this. Sometimes, all you want is to be with Him, and that is something I have come to cherish and look forward to.

My husband and I may spend the day together, take care of business, have dinner, watch a movie or one of our favorite shows, and eventually we break away for the evening. He’ll go and do some work, and sometimes I come into my office to work a little bit before bed. Other nights, when I am trying to maintain my schedule and get up at a decent hour in the morning, I’ll prepare for bed and turn on Dr. Charles Stanley to listen to a sermon or two before falling asleep. I’ll take a few notes, read the Scriptures he references, and then pray.

In the mornings, most times, I wake up before my husband. Before my feet hit the ground, I thank Father God and ask Him to govern my steps, my thoughts, and my actions, and then I head to the prayer room. Often, I’m still thinking about what Dr. Stanley spoke about the night before. Or there may have been a dream, a vision, a thought, or something Father God placed on my heart, and I meet Him there, in the room. Mark 1:35 tells us that even Jesus intentionally withdrew to spend time with the Father: “And in the morning, rising a great while before day, he went out, and departed into a solitary place, and there prayed.”

To be clear, I am not talking about worshipping the room, the sofa, or anything in it. The place itself has no power. Father God is not confined to my office, and His presence certainly is not limited to my little blue sofa. I am talking about a simple meeting place—mine—where I meet with Father God. The place where I intentionally separate myself from everything else for a while and say, Father, I am here. And He meets me, just the Father and me: Father-daughter time. In the room. Where is your space?