My Thinking Place

On my recent trip to the Twin Cities I decided to visit the old neighborhood where I lived for nearly 30 years. There was the post office, the coffee shop, and McDonald’s where I usually got my morning cup of coffee before going to the park to pray.

The park . . . ahhh, the park! I spent many hours in the park praying. It was there that God first asked me to be a serious intercessor. As I pulled into the parking lot, the memories overtook me, I couldn’t resist climbing down under the bridge where there are numerous large rocks along the bank. I sat on a rock and faced the small rapids just 75 feet upstream. The sound was soothing, mesmerizing. In this spot I sat collectively for hours, airing out my brain, getting rid of tensions, sorting through decisions . . . and thinking.

If I grew tired of sitting, I would take the circular path through the woods that took about 20 minutes to walk, and I would pray as I walked. The circle would bring me back to the bridge and my “thinking place.”

Do you have a thinking place?

If you don’t, you should have one.

Several years ago, after a Reach For More event in Jordan, Minnesota, I met with a doctor who had heavily supported the event and played him the short recap video that captured a sampling of each speaker and music group. Most importantly, it showed all the young people going to the front to accept Christ as Savior.

When it was done, he asked me, “What is the biggest problem you have in producing an event?”

Without hesitation I replied, “The business of people.”

it is often difficult to get enough altar workers and counselors because they say they are too busy.

Business is a fatal disease that plaques our culture. Why do I say “fatal?” Because it is. Many people will reach the end of their life and discover that they have wasted it. They were so immersed in mindless activity that they never stopped to figure out the meaning of life, why they were on earth, or where they were going. It will be too late then, at the end of their life. It will be too late to find answers to those questions on their death bed, if they are even cognitive.

As I watch people around me in daily life, I have to conclude that they must be afraid of silence, or what they would find within themselves in the silence. In traffic, I often encounter a vehicle passing by, the boom of the stereo invading my personal space, even though I am some distance away. Runners pass me on the bicycle path with earphones plugging their ears, listening to their favorite band as they run.

Are we afraid of silence? It would seem so.

Did Jesus have a thinking place?

He did.

Often, He would go up into the mountain to spend all night with His Father. Why? He had to hear the Father’s voice, and He had to process what He heard. He had to think about it.

Jesus said that He spoke only what He heard the Father saying, and He did only what He saw the Father doing (John 5:19, 12:49). If Jesus had a formula for success, this was it. You might accurately say that the whole of Jesus’ ministry was formed up in the mountain, in His thinking place.

It is said of Dr. Paul Yonghi Cho, pastor of the world’s largest church of more than a million people,

that he spends three hours

every morning in prayer.

He says during that three hours,

he prays for one hour and he listens for two hours.

It goes without saying that he processes what he hears God saying. In other words, he thinks about it. Dr. Cho says this thinking time is the key to his success.

Presently, God wakes me up at 4 a.m. If I am roused early, I go  to get a drink of water and if the clock on the microwave says 4 a.m. or thereabouts, I brew a cup of coffee and head for my office. I don’t dare go back to bed for fear I would miss this amazing time with God. It is my favorite time of the day. I have a few hours with God undisturbed before the rest of the world wakes up.

This is the time each day when God tells me that He loves me, when He encourages me, when he tells me I am doing a good job, (because I am very hard on myself and generally feel that I am not doing all that I should be doing fast enough).

This is the time that God gives me new directives. I never go into the day confused about what I should be doing that day. This is the time that I write most of my articles for the website. This is the time that “I think.”

Maybe you are struggling in your Christian walk. You can’t seem to get over the bump in the road that is before you. You feel like you are treading water and not going forward. You are frustrated!

Find a thinking place.

Then go there daily

to be with God and 

to process what He says to you.

I guarantee you, the thinking place will revolutionize your life!

Take Time to Be Holy

By Lorraine

If you aren’t willing to sit with the Lord to pray and to listen, how can you expect to be led of the Lord and to be guided by Him in your day?

The answer is . . . “It doesn’t happen”.

There is a hymn called, “Take Time to Be Holy”, written about 1882 by William Longstaff, who was an Englishman. He served as treasurer of the Bethesda Free Chapel in Sunderland. This was the first church to hold meetings by D.L. Moody and Ira Sankey.

Longstaff was inspired to write the poem, which later became a hymn, after hearing a sermon based on 1 Peter 1: 16 “Be holy, for I am holy”. The first stanza goes like this,

Take time to be holy,

Speak oft with thy Lord;

Abide in Him always,

And feed on His word.

Make friends with God’s children;

Help those who are weak,

Forgetting in nothing His blessing to seek,

Longstaff must have felt it was a message that people needed to hear even then, in the late eighteen hundreds. Take time to be with the Lord, even if you don’t hear a word. He will be there with you. The Lord is jealous for you and He longs to sit with you. You will develop a new confidence over time just by making time for Him.

In His Service,

George and Lorraine Halama

Pictures taken by George 

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