Solitude and the H.S.

"If our souls are anxious and distracted, our life connection with God will suffer. The more we are led into quietness, the more attuned we become of God" -Bruce Demarest

We can't follow God's will, unless we know what it is. To know what it is we need to listen to him, but God is in the stillness. God has a still small voice, a whisper that can barely be heard over the loudness of our lives. In the moments that we need to hear God the most, we forget the most to stop and listen. We pray yes, but prayer is verbal. Prayer is not stillness. Its important, yes, absolutely. But if we seek to hear God's voice, to hear his call, our will for our lives then we must also stop. I don't know why, but for so many of us, the thought of sitting in absolute silence is scary. It might even make us go to sleep. That is because we forget that we have the Holy Spirit, the counselor living within us, that needs to lead the way. Stopping isn't about sitting in a quiet room while your mind goes over you"to do list". Its about stopping and focusing on God. Contemplating on Him. Affirming your faith in Him, your love for him. It isn't about saying your prayer request in your head. Its about recognizing God's presence in your life. We forget he is there, oh we know he is omniscient but we forget that means he is there. His presence, there. His spirit in you. Stopping helps you recognize that. It helps you realize that you cannot do his will with out him.

Moreover, listening to God also has an element of solitude. When we study Jesus we find that Jesus spend a lot of time on his own. There are many verses that describe that he fled from the multitudes. There is something about being alone that draws us closer to God. Maybe its the reduction in distractions. I don't know. But so many of us fear being alone, or think there is something wrong with it. Yet, I have found that in the solitude my soul is drawn closer to God, in the solitude I can hear God clearer.

contemplation

As Christians we have all heard the famous passages that describe how God is in the stillness or how he has a still small voice. We know very well that if we want to hear God than we need to be quiet. Yet, that seems to be the hardest thing for us to do.

I read a chapter on the power of contemplation for our Christian lives and afterward I found myself contemplating about God, and it was beautiful moment. In my church experience, we have talked a lot about prayer, and I can give a whole monologue about the importance of prayer, and I believe it with all my heart and am in no way trying to devalue prayer, but this concept of contemplation was a little foreign to me and I found it refreshing. Prayer is very verbal while contemplation is not. I think that is the key. In the silence. The purpose of contemplation is to focus your inmost being on God himself. Is isn't trying to bring God into your presence, because God is omniscient (which we tend to forget). He is already there, so its really about becoming attuned with the already present presence of God. Its not a time of silence, where your mind is racing on about your "to list", its a time to focus your mind, its a time to listen, its a time to become aware of the Holy Spirit that lives in you. Contemplation is abandoning yourself for a little to God so that you can hear him.

Verbal prayer is very much about the surrounding circumstances in our lives, which at times can be overwhelming, and verbal prayer is important to our Christian walk, but contemplative prayer is about the inner world, its about God in you. Contemplative prayer can sound odd, maybe a bit "new age" but its not about the self at all. Its about listening to God, affirming your faith to God and your love to God.

a lost day

Dietrich Bonhoeffer said " Why do I meditate? Because I am a Christian. Therefore, every day in which I do not penetrate more deeply into the knowledge of God's Word in Holy Scripture is a lost day for me. I can only move forward with certainty upon the firm ground of the Word of God."

Since the day I read that in a book for class, I have not been able to stop thinking about it. It made me wonder how many lost days have I had? Is today a lost day? I realize that I don't want to have a lost day.

We often forget the role of the Holy Scriptures in our lives. The Scriptures are real, relevant and they are the words of God so they have power to speak into our lives. How am I to grow closer to the Lord and hear him without meditating on Scriptures? The Scriptures not only tell stories that we can relate to, the scriptures also reveal about God's nature. The Scriptures are one of God's ways that he choose to reveal himself through. It reveals of God as father, son and Holy spirit, the triune God. If I want to move forward, then it is as Bonhoeffer states it "I can only move forward with the certainty upon the firm ground of the Word of God." The opposite may also be true I cannot move forward (at least not in God's will) if I do not have the firm ground of the Word of God.

treadmill

Its thursday afternoon and Im at the gym. You guessed it, on the treadmill. I'm looking out the window at people wearing layers of clothing trying to hurry through to get inside a building. Beep beep. The treadmill wants me to put my hands on the bars to get my heart rate. To my right is this girl running crazy fast, I look like a grandma running next to her. To my left is some guy working out his arms. I forgot my ipod, so my brain is only being distracted by my thoughts. Not good. Fifteen minutes left. Beep beep. Again? Now I'm running even slower because apparently my heart rate is too high, somehow I doubt it has anything to do with my running. My head is on overdrive. I still can't get over the fact that I am here. I still wake up most mornings turn over in my bed and think, oh crap! I'm in Wheaton, Illinois! I've been here for like 5 weeks. In 3 weeks I'll be going home for spring break. I miss the sun. I have a new found love for the Florida sun, and to think that so often I got mad at it. I usually don't like running on treadmills. I don't like the fact that I can give it my all and go as fast as my body can handle, and still get nowhere. I much prefer running outside, but I'll pretty much die if I run outside in this weather, beside the gym is included in my tuition. Might as well. Life is slow here. Time goes much faster in Miami. There's also so much more to do over there. But I am here. I'm going to class, I'm reading, I'm writing papers. That is my existence here. I know that this is what I need to be doing at this point in my life, but why is it so hard for that to be OK for now? My Miami life was non stop, on the go. work, church, home, friends, life group, dogs, mission trips, files and the list goes on. 15 minutes are up, cool down for 5 minutes. cool down. I always used to skip the cool down part before, never liked it much, never had patience for it. To slowly decrease speed until you come to a stop. I'm going to do it. For the first time ever, I will do the cool down all the way, no matter how dumb it feels. There's a purpose for cool down isn't there? Its good for your body right? I just wonder what will I do, after the cool down? Should I go on the bicycle, should I workout a specific part of my body? I guess we'll see.