In 1917, a man name Frederick Freestone invented the phrase “quiet time” because people in his church were not comfortable with the term “meditation.” That was completely fictional, but I think it’s true that we’re not that cool with the word meditation. When we hear it we think of candles and the lotus position and maybe making our own clothing out of hemp. It sounds new age or weirdo spiritual. But quiet time, that’s downright holy. For instance, if a friend said to you, “I meditated all weekend” you might think in your head, “I bet they read that hot new celebrity spiritual book ‘The New Earth.’ We’re going to need a God-intervention.” But if someone said to you, “I had a lot of quiet times this weekend,” you’d probably think, “Wow, this guy is holy.”
I like meditating. I like being quiet and still and blank for just a little while each day. (And by blank I just mean not distracted by all the things that stand between me and God.) I am cool with calling it quiet time but at the same time I think God is a God of freedom and creativity and he’s not going to give me the elbow of death if I call it the wrong thing.
