What did Jesus’ quiet time look like?

We know Jesus lived out his life conscious of the presence of the Father, but does the Bible contain any evidence to suggest how our Lord spent quality time with God? Is there anything you could model your own devotional time on?

I believe there is. Sprinkled throughout the Synoptic Gospels are at least six verses that point to Jesus’ personal times of prayer: Matthew 14:23, Mark 1:35, Mark 6:46, Luke 4:42, Luke 5:16, Luke 6:12. Given they don’t appear to say anything profound, they are easy to overlook. But if we were to unpack these verses I think we would find that they say much more about Jesus’ relationship with his Father and indicate a practice we might call a quiet time.

How long did Jesus pray for?

To begin with, Luke states “Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed (Luke 5:16).” In other translations, “lonely place” is replaced by a variety of words or phrases: mountainside, desert, wilderness, solitary place - all of which point to an isolated location not readily accessible. Also, the word “often” is used in many translations, suggesting that far from being an occasional practice, these times of solitude and prayer were regular - a habit.

But the main significance of these verses is the length of time Jesus spent in prayer. These times, requiring walking up into the desert or hills, were never a matter of the minutes, as we might measure our quiet times in, but of hours. However, ironically, I would like to suggest that the times Jesus spent actually talking to God would have been brief. For one thing, he did not appear to like lengthy verbal prayers. In Matthew 6:7 he stated “when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words.”

What did Jesus pray for? 

Luke 6:12-13 is the only example that indicates a specific purpose for the time of prayer: the calling of his disciples. “Jesus went out to a mountainside to pray, and spent the night praying to God. When morning came, he called his disciples to him and chose twelve of them, whom he also designated apostles.”

Given Jesus only did what he saw the Father doing (John 5:19), the Father would have already prepared Jesus for what he was about to do. So, what might Jesus have asked him during the night? Would he have asked the Father for the names of the disciples? Perhaps, but that doesn’t sit well with me.

I am much more comfortable accepting the fact that Jesus asked the Father for the discernment the next day to choose the right men in accordance with God’s will. And I’m just as comfortable with the idea that Jesus didn’t need to ask anything at all as I will explain shortly. Either way, what needed to be asked would have taken a few minutes at most.

Keeping company with God

Maybe Jesus had further concerns he wished to bring before the Father but I can’t imagine them taking up more than a small portion of the night. So, what do we make of the length of the prayer times? Aside from an occasion nap perhaps to sustain himself, I think it likely that for much of these lengthy times of prayer Jesus simply kept company with the Father, communed with God, in periods of attentive silence.

In a letter I received from Eugene Peterson after I had studied under him at Regent College, Vancouver he wrote “Jesus’ nights of prayer suggest a ‘being there’ with God in silence and solitude”, recognising that, in the hours Jesus spends with God, verbal prayer was likely to give way to silent listening and keeping company with God.

the importance of lengthy times of prayer lay in the silent communion between Father and Son

I believe the importance of the night, and the other lengthy times of prayer, lay in the silent communion that nurtured the intimacy and relationship between Father and Son, and that would also ultimately lead to what my spiritual director calls “sanctified intuition,” the discernment, the “knowing” that Jesus would have had when the Father spoke to him, in this case when he encountered any one of the twelve the following day. And I believe that pattern would hold true every time Jesus went into the wilderness to pray.

I say much more in my book, but I believe what I have shared points to what Jesus’ regular quiet time may well have looked like. For many years, I have started my day with an hour spent silently keeping company with God and the practice has only added to that belief.