How Taking a Timeout with God Can Transform Your Life

Saul picked himself up off the ground, but when he opened his eyes he was blind. So his companions led him by the hand to Damascus.  He remained there blind for three days and did not eat or drink. Acts 9:8-9 NLT

Immediately after Saul encounters Jesus on the road to Damascus, he is struck blind for three days, during which time he doesn’t eat or drink anything. Saul’s life has been placed into timeout, because apart from sleep, there isn’t much else Saul can do during this time other than practice self-reflection and solitude with God.

The reason for this timeout was because God wanted to transform Saul and his entire life. He wanted to move Saul from a life of persecuting Christians to one of discipling them. This level of life transformation required a change of perspective from Saul. He needed to stop seeing himself and the world through his eyes and see them through God’s eyes instead.

During this timeout, God is like a coach and Saul a quarterback. God is sitting Saul down and going through his life play-by-play and changing his perspectives to pave the way for spiritual and mental transformation and future success.

Saul’s timeout proved very successful, as he was radically transformed by God. After his sight was restored, he started preaching in the synagogues that Jesus was the son of God. Instead of persecuting Christians he was calling people to become Christians. People who heard Saul preach were shocked by the transformation and those he used to work with began to plot his demise.

God transformed Saul and gave him a new purpose in life, equipped him with new passions, skills, and reset the course of his life. The new identity Saul was given by God was so radically different, that he changed his name to Paul. He was no longer the same person, so he no longer went by the same name.

God wants to transform our lives the same way. He wants to take away the habits, the distorted patterns of thinking, the emotional reactivity, and completely change our perspectives regarding ourselves and our life. God wants to bring about complete mental and spiritual transformation within all of us.

The truth is we can experience the same level of transformation in our lives as Saul did, we just need to take a timeout from life and ourselves. By doing so, we create the time and space necessary for us to listen to God and to see everything that He wants to show us about our lives and our future with Him.

When I was on a mission trip in the Philippines last year, I experienced the power of a timeout from life firsthand. I ended up contracting Influenza A and I self-isolated for two days until my symptoms subsided in the hope that I would avoid passing the virus on to someone else. During this time, I had poor internet reception and nothing but a bible app on my phone and plenty of time for solitude and prayer.

During this time of solitude and self-reflection, God spoke to me about my life in challenging and life changing ways. He inspired me to create the website that you are reading this devotion on. He challenged my computer gaming and comfort eating habits and directed my heart away from a career in medicine as a skin cancer specialist, to one of providing psychological services to people in need of mental health treatment.

Taking a timeout with God can transform our lives. The good news is we can do so without being blinded or contracting Influenza. We can choose to place ourselves into a timeout with God by regularly practicing the following:

Take Timeout for Solitude with God

Solitude is an often under practiced spiritual discipline. As Christians, we are often good at turning to God in prayer and speaking to Him, but not so good at being silent and listening to what God wants to say to us. Like any good conversation, it helps to give God an opportunity to speak.

The spiritual discipline of solitude takes time to practice. It requires us to not only take timeout from our lives, but to do so in a quiet environment where we can clear our thoughts and direct our attention to God and His voice. The more we practice solitude with God, the better we can hear His voice challenge our perspectives and transform our lives.

Take a Timeout from Your Routine

Often in life we get stuck into certain routines that structure our lives in a way that prevents God from moving us on from where we are, to where He wants us to be. Sometimes this is because we are comfortable with how things are, and it never crosses our mind that God would want to change that. Other times our routines become second nature, and we don’t realise that God has a better way for us to live our lives. Or we stubbornly believe that we couldn’t possibly quit our job or ministry because there is no one to replace us.

This is where taking a timeout from our routines can be helpful. When we stop doing something habitually it helps us to see that sometimes instead of making our lives better, it is making them worse. It can help us to see that there are better ways for us to live our lives.

If the routine is our job or ministry, taking a timeout can help us to see that we are not as indispensable or irreplaceable as we thought. God is more powerful than we give Him credit for, and if He wants to move us on from where we are, He will raise people up to take our place.

Sometimes we need to place ourselves on the bench to see that there is someone else willing and able to take our place.

Take a Timeout from Your Devices

This is a personal favourite of mine that has yielded much fruitfulness in my life over the years. We often lose many hours to websites, social media and streaming without even realising it. Sometimes, we lose many hours of sleep to our devices as well, impacting our productivity throughout the day.

Taking a timeout out from our devices helps us to see how intrusive they have become in our lives. Often when I’ve reduced the time I spend on my devices, I’ve found myself more productive in other areas of my life, achieving goals that I might not have thought possible.

Take Timeout to Practice Self-Reflection

This is possibly the most important practice on the list. Because when we don’t take timeout for self-reflection, we deprive ourselves of the opportunity to check-in with ourselves and assess how we are travelling mentally and spiritually.

Self-reflection provides us with an opportunity to ask ourselves important questions. Am I living my life according to my values and do they line-up with God’s values? How am I progressing with my goals and do they line-up with God’s desires for my life? Am I stuck in habitual behaviours or patterns of thinking and are these preventing me from hearing from God more clearly?

It also provides us with the opportunity to ask ourselves whether we need timeout from our lives or to assess what we have learned from a timeout.

Taking a timeout with God transformed Saul’s life and it can transform our lives as well. So, which of the above practices are you going to choose for your next timeout from life, and how is God going to change your life as a result? Why don’t you try one out and find how God wants to take you from where you are to where He wants you to be.

Reflection

Reflect on the last time you spent some time in solitude. Recall the freedom from distractions. The peace in your heart. The clarity of your thoughts. The insights you gained. How much better did it make you feel? Are you open to creating a space for this in your life?

Prayer

Father God, I want more of you in my life. I'm open to creating spaces in my life for us to spend time together and to listen to what you have to say.

Affirmation

I am never too busy for time with God.

Action

Choose one of the above timeout strategies and commit to making time for it every day.