"I began arising early each morning to spend time worshipping the Lord," reported Ann who was hungry for God's presence. "I used the Psalms, singing them back to God.

I recently read this quote by H. MacGregor: "With the single exception of adoration, in which God alone is the object, there is nothing higher than intercession." The rest of the chapter was on intercession, but that sentence stopped me. There is nothing higher that we can do than simply adore God.

In my first attempt to have a home Bible study, I invited neighbors, friends, and some of my husband's colleagues' wives to an introductory coffee. For two days I worked in the kitchen making what resulted in rather pitiful-looking French pastries. Just as the women began arriving, my coffee grinder flew apart, landing a big pile of coffee on the floor. There was no time to clean up the mess, so we stepped around it.

When Dennis Kinlaw was a freshman in college, he had a hunger to please God and to know Him better.* He knew a senior who had remarkable maturity and decided to ask him how he could grow more quickly in his Christian life. The friend asked how much time he spent alone with God. Dr. Kinlaw is sure he exaggerated the amount of time. The friend responded simply, "Double it." That closed their conversation.

Ben Patterson, a campus pastor, speaks in Deepening Your Conversation With God of his habit of rising early to be in solitude. He says that in all honesty, he gets up not to achieve an elite level of spiritual athleticism; he gets up because it is so good and pleasant to do so. He can hardly call it a discipline anymore. "It is so delicious, so ineffably sweet to hear the Lord, the Good Shepherd speak, or even to hope that he might," he says. It isn't so much that God speaks directly during those times; rather, the stillness prepares Patterson to be alert to those whispers and nudges he might receive as he drives his car or walks across campus.