Creating Quiet for God #2

Here is Gordon MacDonald in Ordering Your Private World on getting quiet with God:

Silence and solitude have not come easily to me at all. I once equated them with laziness, inaction, and unproductivity. The minute I was alone, my mind exploded with a list of things I should do: phone calls to make, papers I should be filing, books unread, sermons unprepared, and people I ought to see.

The slightest noise outside my study door was a massive intrusion to concentration. It seemed as if my hearing became supersensitive, and I could overhear conversations at the other end of our house….Because my study is near our laundry room, it never seemed to fail that the moment I got into spiritual activity the washing machine would decide the load inside was unbalanced, and its foghorn-like buzzer would go off, insisting that I…should come and readjust the wash.

But concentrating even when there was silence became desperately difficult. I learned that I had to warm up, to accept the fact that for about 15 minutes my mind would do everything it could to resist the solitude. So among the things I did was to start by reading or writing on the subject of my spiritual pursuits.

MacDonald goes on to explain how journaling has been incredibly helpful to him in many ways, one of which was to get over the “hump” and begin to focus.

So don't be discouraged if you're distracted as you try to get quiet with God. Just keep at it every day. Eventually your mind will become trained and will more easily set aside your extraneous and irrelevant thoughts. And, even more importantly, God will honor your attempts to seek Him out and put Him ahead of all your other pressing thoughts and responsibilities. I've mentioned Elisabeth Elliot’s thoughts on this subject before but they continue to help me so I'll mention them again. Elliot also frets about that “wasted” time when you can’t seem to pray or get your mind to stay focused on God. She says she has come to regard them as an offering to God, no matter how imperfect.

It is a good and necessary thing to set aside time for God in each day. The busier the day, the more indispensable is this quiet period for prayer, Bible reading, and silent listening. It often happens, however, that I find my mind so full of earthly matters that it seems I have gotten up early in vain and have wasted three-fourths of the time so dearly bought (I do love my sleep!). But I have come to believe that the act of will required to arrange time for God may be an offering to Him. As such He accepts it, and what would otherwise be "loss" to me I count as "gain" for Christ.

(From Elisabeth Elliot’s A Lamp for My Feet.)

Creating Quiet for God

I was listening to a Brian Tracy audio program about time management this weekend. Tracy told about a conference he recently attended which included a formal dinner opened in prayer. Upon opening his eyes at the close of the prayer, Tracey was startled to see that four or five people seated at his table seemed strangely moved by the prayer. They remained with heads bowed, hands in their laps, well after the “amen.” In fact, they remained this way even as their food began to be delivered. Then Tracy realized that they had not been praying; they were using the opportunity to check messages on their blackberries.

Now you and I might not go quite that far—checking email during time devoted to public prayer—but I wonder how different I really am from these people when I repeatedly find myself thinking through the day’s to-do list when I actually mean to pray. Or how about when I leap up from Bible reading to answer the telephone, take the laundry out of the dryer as soon as the timer buzzes, etc.? I let things of far lower priority interrupt and distract me from the really important task of speaking with God.

Now Brian Tracy was not trying to emphasize the importance of prayer when he told this story. He was simply illustrating how absurdly attached we’ve become to our hi-tech communication devices. He recommends turning them all off for periods of time during the day—no cell phone, telephone, email, PDA, blackberry or anything else that can summon your attention and distract you from the project at hand—in order to achieve maximum efficiency in time management.

But Tracy’s idea is a good one for Christians seeking to achieve more in their daily relationship with God as well. We know we need to set aside some time when no one can reach us but God. We know we need to get quiet so we can hear His voice above all the others. But it seems impossible in this fast-paced crazy world, doesn’t it? One very practical way to make progress in this area is to deliberately turn off all communication devices for some period of the day. Let the calls go to voicemail. Check email later. While you're at it, make sure the radio, iPod and TV are off as well. Get quiet with God.

What God Can Do With Quiet #2

Are you worried that seeking silent, private times alone seems the opposite of “Christian?” Aren’t we supposed to love and serve other people? How can we do that when we are always trying to steal away by ourselves? Aren’t we being selfish? Henri Nouwen has something to say about this issue: these times actually enable us to be truly compassionate towards others.

In solitude we realize that nothing human is alien to us, that the roots of all conflict, war, injustice, cruelty, hatred, jealousy, and envy are deeply anchored in our heart. In solitude our heart of stone can be turned into a heart of flesh, a rebellious heart into a contrite heart, and a closed heart into a heart that can open itself to all suffering people in a gesture of solidarity…. Solitude molds self-righteous people into gentle, caring, forgiving persons who are so deeply convinced of their own great sinfulness and so fully aware of God’s even greater mercy that their life itself becomes ministry.

In other words, when you commute in total silence for 35 minutes your mind has time to mull over things that bother you and to understand them more fully. You begin to realize that your spouse’s faults are no greater than your own. You begin to understand that the things that drive you crazy about your kids are things they learned from you. You begin to catch a glimpse of how miserable your constantly complaining co-worker’s life must be. You are more prepared to respond with compassion to your co-worker and with a less self-righteous attitude toward your spouse and kids.

Now, admittedly, transformation is a long, slow process—-but we must make a start somewhere and a good place to start is carving out some silent times in our days which we turn over to God. Just turn off the radio (iPod, TV, whatever) and, as you begin to worry, feel angry, imagine yourself as king of the world, etc, turn your thoughts to God. Compare them to what you have been reading in the New Testament. Begin to laugh at yourself and talk your craziness over with God. If no one is within earshot you can do it out loud.

The quote is from Henri J.M. Nouwen, The Way of the Heart: Connecting with God through Prayer, Wisdom and Silence.

What God Can Do With Quiet

Henri Nouwen, who wrote many books on spirituality, says that times of solitude and silence are the furnaces of transformation God uses in our lives. Without them, “we remain victims of our society and continue to be entangled in illusions” of ourselves. Here is how Nouwen says they work.

First, periods of quiet time alone remove our usual props—no friends to talk to on the phone, no music to entertain, no advertising to make us believe we are worth something—just us. Then, inevitably, our ugliness begins to make itself known, usually in the form of anger or greed. We find ourselves imagining scenes in which we deliver the perfect comeback to an unreasonable co-worker or annoying customer. Or we daydream about wealth, influence or looking incredibly hip in a new pair of jeans. We come face to face with our selfishness and realize that only Jesus can change us. We begin to pray and allow Him to work on us. Thus, Nouwen says times of solitude and silence are places “where Christ remodels us in His own image and frees us from the victimizing compulsions of the world.”

Having trouble finding ways to eliminate the noise in your life? Take a look at your day and identify all the times you are alone. For many of us, this may only be during our commutes, workouts or when doing some undesirable chore that makes the rest of the family run for cover. Turn off anything you usually do to distract yourself during these times. No radio, iPod, TV, cell phone, etc. Still having trouble finding a quiet time alone? Can your spouse watch the kids while you take a walk around the block after dinner? Can you take a walk during your lunch break at work? Can you plunk down the kids at the public library story hour and then go sit in a quiet part of the library by yourself? Get creative. You can actually pray that God will give you some periods of quiet during your day.

If you are interested in reading more of what Nouwen has to say, try The Way of the Heart: Connecting with God through Prayer, Wisdom and Silence. The quotes in this post are taken from the chapter entitled, "The Furnace of Transformation."

Why Get Quiet?

Why get quiet? Is there something wrong with DJs, music and TV news? No. Not usually. It’s just that they conspire to keep us from things that are so much better. Like prolonged thought. Like remembering the person who you volunteered to pray for and then forgot all about. Like realizing that the situation that’s troubling you at work is exactly the same as something you heard in last Sunday’s sermon.

It’s no secret that Jesus sought times of solitude and silence and encouraged his disciples to draw away from the crowds for awhile too. And many of the Christians we think of as "great" down through the centuries (like Brother Lawrence and Mother Theresa) have advocated getting quiet and alone as a primary way to focus more intently on God. But how in the world are we to do that when we are so busy with our jobs, our kids, volunteer activities, the house, etc., etc.? One way to begin is to create little oases of quiet where possible in our days.

So how are you doing with getting rid of the gratuitous, extraneous noise in your life? Can you commute in silence? Can you give up listening to the news repetitively while getting ready for work or cooking dinner? Just try it. And don’t forget to keep up with the habits we developed in January and February—-praying for a few minutes three times a day and reading the New Testament for 7-8 minutes each day.

Got Quiet?

This post is dedicated to the blog reader who--in response to my suggesting a book yesterday for those of you who thought we might be moving too slowly—-asked if there was a book for those who think we are moving too fast. The challenge for March will not take any extra time out of your schedule. You can definitely accomplish this one.

The challenge this month is to turn off the extra noise in your life. One of the reasons we have such a hard time hearing God’s “still, small voice” is that we are in the habit of drowning it out. It’s also one of the reasons we don’t find our thoughts turning more often to God during the day and we offer so few spontaneous prayers. We are distracted by the noise all around us.

I know you can’t turn off your kids, your boss or your spouse, but there is probably a lot of other noise you can eliminate. Do you listen to the radio while commuting? OK, just listen to the traffic report and then shut it off. Do you have news shows constantly humming in the background while you cook dinner and clean the kitchen? Feel naked if you leave the house without your iPod? And how much are you talking on the cell phone just to keep yourself entertained? Try to carve out some quiet during your day. God will use this time to renew your mind.

Now, there is one catch. Often we have turned on all this distracting noise for the very reason that we want to be distracted. We are uncomfortable with our own thoughts or we have a tendency to worry or feel afraid if not forced to think about something else. I noticed that when I stopped listening to the radio while commuting I began to worry about work more. This becomes the perfect opportunity to take God at His word and pray about the anxious thoughts that begin to crowd into your mind. That takes some self-discipline but the end result is more peace.

Try it for March. What’s the worst that could happen? You can always turn the noise back on in April. (And don’t forget to keep up with the habits you developed in January and February—-praying 3 times a day and reading the New Testament for 7-8 minutes a day.)