How to Make a Praise Playlist for Your Quiet Time

A playlist can carry a quiet time or wreck it. The difference is almost always the building rather than the songs.

1 Thessalonians 5:18 says to give thanks in everything, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus toward you. In everything is the wide part of that sentence. A playlist is one small way of keeping the instruction within reach on the mornings you would not arrive at it on your own. What follows is a way to put one together that lasts a season instead of a week.

Decide What It Is For

A playlist for driving is not a playlist for sitting still. Before you add anything, decide whether this is meant to settle you, to lift you, or to fill the room while you read.

Most quiet time playlists fail because they are trying to do all three, and the tempo changes keep pulling you back out.

Ask a plainer question if that one is hard. What do you want to be true of you when the last song ends? Settle for one answer and build toward it.

Length Sets Everything

Make it as long as your quiet time, not longer. Twenty five to thirty minutes is right for most people, which is six or seven songs.

When the playlist ends, the practice ends. That is a better close than looking at a clock.

The Order That Works

Build it in four movements. One song to arrive and settle. Two that turn your attention to God rather than yourself. One quiet enough to read or pray under. And one to close on.

Put the slowest song third or fourth, not first. Starting at a whisper makes most people restless.

Instrumental tracks are worth two of the seven slots if you read while it plays. Words compete with words, and a passage read over a lyric is a passage half read.

Choose Songs You Can Sing

Beautiful production is not the point. A song you can sing along to at half volume does more for a morning than one you can only admire.

Older hymns work well here. So does anything you already know by heart, because you are not learning while you worship.

Volume is part of this. Loud enough to hear, quiet enough to sing under, is about right. If you cannot hear your own voice, the playlist has stopped being worship and become a soundtrack.

Keep It Simple to Look At

Give it a plain name and one calm cover image. Turn shuffle off, since the order is the whole design.

And keep it separate from every other playlist you own. This one is for one purpose and should not surface anywhere else.

Refresh It Each Season

Four times a year, swap two or three songs. Not all of them, because familiarity is part of what makes a playlist restful.

Colossians 3:16 mentions singing with grace in your heart to the Lord, and a good playlist is only a way of making room for that. Build yours this afternoon and use it tomorrow.

Keep a running note of songs to add so the refresh takes five minutes rather than an evening. When a song finds you in the car, it goes on the list right then.