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.)

Power of Bible Reading

Why make it a habit to read the Bible? Especially when there are lots of great Christian books to read, Bible studies to attend and sermons to download, all of which seem more readily digestible and practical than reading a bit of the Bible each day? Here's Dallas Willard's thoughts on the unique effectiveness of the Bible incorporated into your daily life....

The Prophets and the Gospels share with the Law this vital function of enabling human beings to know God--to know what God is doing and what we are to do. For in that knowledge lies our true well-being....

The law of the Lord gratefully received, studied, and internalized to the point of obedience is "perfect" as Psalm 19:7 says. There is nothing lacking in it for its intended purpose. It therefore converts and restores the souls of those who seek it and receive it. It is a living and powerful being, capable of distinguishing soul and spirit in man and dealing with them appropriately and redemptively (see Hebrews 4:12).

If we want to see real change in our lives we have to start with reading the Bible. Even when it seems tedious or difficult, it is at work restoring our souls and renewing our minds.

"The law of the LORD is perfect, reviving the soul. The statutes of the LORD are trustworthy, making wise the simple." Psalm 19:7

Quote from Revolution of Character by Dallas Willard with Don Simpson.

Small Steps to Spiritual Transformation

I'm currently reading Revolution of Character by Dallas Willard and Don Simpson, so, as always when I'm reading Dallas Willard, expect a lot of quotes:

I believe one reason so many people fail to immerse themselves in the life described in the New Testament is that is so unlike their own experience. This is true even though they may be quite faithful to their church and really do have Jesus Christ as their only hope. But the New Testament presentation of the life they are offered in Christ only discourages them. Instead of inspiring them, it makes them feel hopeless.

Why is this? Surely the life God holds out to us in Jesus was not meant to be an unsolvable puzzle! I suggest that for all our good intentions and strenuous efforts, we don't approach and receive the life Jesus offers us in the right way.
....

Jesus invites us to leave our burdensome ways of heavy labor--especially our religious ones--and step into the yoke of training with him. His is a way of gentleness and lowliness, a way of soul rest. His is a way of inner transformation in which carrying our burden with him is easy and light (see Matthew 11:28-30). What we thought was so difficult about entering fully into divine life is entirely due to our failure to understand and take the small steps that quietly but surely lead to our transformation.

What are these small steps? In large part they are simply the habits we have been talking about in this blog. So don't get discouraged. Keep reading. Keep praying. Keep attempting to create oases of quiet in your life. These are the little things that will quietly but surely lead to your transformation into the image of Christ.

Layering Prayer Into Your Day #3

Another way that I have layered more prayer into my life is by training myself to pray anytime I wake up in the night. I am a person who falls back asleep pretty quickly but I can usually manage to pray a thought or two, something like--“Thank you God that the alarm is not going to go off for another two hours. Thank you God for this warm bed!”--and then back to snoozing. It may seem insignificant, but it has become an automatic habit no matter how groggy I am and I think it helps me feel the presence of God more continually. I also feel a sort of kinship with David and the other psalmists who wrote about praying on their beds through the night.

For lots of people, wakeful times during the night are the times they are most prone to worry or to fear. What a perfect response—to replace the habit of worrying through the night with deliberately handing over those worries to God, to replace the fearful hours with time spent asking God for safety and thanking Him for the protection He has provided so far.

Of course, if you really suffer from insomnia, you could try the old practice of counting your blessings instead of counting sheep. I personally have never been able to try this since I conk out so fast but I would imagine that if you are accustomed to tossing and turning for hours, it could be very helpful to focus your mind on remembering and repeating all the good things He has done for you, thanking Him that He has so constantly kept His eye out for you.

Praying throughout the night is a habit that took a few months for me to build since I am pretty dazed and confused at night (and I must admit I’ve found myself praying some rather odd prayers—like this morning when I woke up 15 minutes before the alarm and prayed “Oh God, please make these 15 minutes seem really long!”) but it has been worthwhile. I now immediately sense His welcoming presence and protection in the darkness. Not only do I pray more, but I also pray more continually.

Layering Prayer Into Your Day #2

Here are some other ideas for “layering” prayer into your day:

--Pick a task you do repeatedly throughout the day and use that as a trigger to pray briefly. For example, whenever you save a document or wash your hands, you can pause for a moment, thanking God for His presence and asking for His direction. This is pretty much the same idea as praying before meals—it just adds more triggers throughout your day.

--Pray as you clean the house. As you enter each new room, whisper a sentence or two about the things associated with that room. For example, pray for each for your children as you tidy their rooms or make their beds. Thank God for His constant provision as you clean the kitchen. Ask God to help you to follow His command not to worry about what to wear as you fold the laundry. You get the idea. Take it from me, it’s not easy to keep praying continuously as I clean, but it’s a lot better than grumbling and complaining my way through the chores.

--Pray when you need to spend money. About two years ago I started to pray every time I walked into the grocery store. Just a few words: Lord, help me to spend responsibly; don’t let me buy more than we need; thank you for providing for us. The first time I prayed this way a really odd thing happened. I went to pick up the first item on my list and a coupon for that item was sitting on top, like someone had decided not to use it and left it there for me. Second item, same thing happened. It happened four or five times throughout the store that day! Other odd things have happened in the two years I’ve been praying about groceries. Most frequently, the store will be out of something I am sure I need and I will get home to find that I already have that item hiding in the back of a cabinet. I’ve been extending that prayer to other types of shopping trips now, especially clothes shopping with my teenage daughter!

--Pray every time you pay a bill. For most of us, paying bills is synonymous with worry. We look at the checkbook or online banking statement and we begin to worry. When you sit down to pay the bills or balance the checkbook, thank God for providing for you, ask Him to direct your spending, pray about any specific financial concerns or just ask Him to help you break the habit of worrying about money. It can be just a 10 second prayer, but if you make it a habit to pray with every bill you pay, you’ll be praying a lot!

Layering Prayer Into Your Day

Back to this idea of layering-—consciously adding prayer, Bible reading and time spent with God in small bits and pieces throughout the day until these times become ingrained habits, until they are part of the normal pattern of our days.

When I first began my layering experiment, I decided to use various things I do every day as “prayer reminders,” things that would prompt me to pray here and there for a minute or two. I thought this was a rather feeble attempt to pray without ceasing but I actually heard Charles Zimmerman, a professor at Biblical Seminary, make this very same suggestion during a sermon recently. Now that I have heard a seminary professor recommend it, I feel pretty good about it! Zimmerman called these things “prayer prompts.” They add no “extra” time to your daily schedule, but they get you praying. The following are some of his suggestions and some of mine.

--Hit alarm button. Ask God to direct you throughout the day. Specifically mention anything you are worried about that you (or someone you love) will face during the day.

--Take shower. Ask God to cleanse you from the inside out. Thank Him for your health and pray about any specific health concerns.

--Eat breakfast. Thank God for His daily provision. Ask Him to continue meeting your physical needs throughout the day.

--Read newspaper. Ask God to work His will on earth. Pray quickly about things that are worrying you in the news—the fear of e. coli, your kids getting too involved in My Space, an election, whatever.

--Get kids out the door to school. Pray for their spiritual and physical safety and any specific concerns you have.

--Arrive at work. Ask God to bless your work, direct your ways and help your attitude.

You get the idea. Modify these suggestions to fit your daily routine and remember, these are just quick shots of prayer raised to God. They don’t require a big block of time which you can’t find or maintain on a regular basis. The whole point is that you already do all the rest of this stuff on a regular basis so if you weave prayer into them you have a chance of praying more regularly. After awhile, you’ll find that prayer is becoming an automatic response. In other words, you'll find you are becoming a person of prayer.

A Layered Approach to Spiritual Growth

What is my obsession with habits anyway? I’ll tell you how it came about. A few years ago I resolved for about the two hundredth time to make God and my spiritual growth a priority. I had failed miserably at this in the past, and I knew it was because my ideas were always too “big,” too unrealistic and didn’t fit well with the other things going on in my life. I would think ambitious things like, “I’m going to get up an hour early and study the Bible,” but at the time I was a working mom with toddlers and totally exhausted in the mornings. On top of that, because they were toddlers, my kids would hear me when I got up and immediately want to get up themselves…needless to say, no more quiet time at my house! I could go on and on about failed attempts at starting prayer journals, unread Christian books collecting dust on my night table, etc.

I decided that I needed to apply what I thought of as a “layering” approach: a couple Bible verses here, a quick prayer there, a sermon on tape during my commute, etc. I thought I’d add a bit more each month and that eventually these efforts might build on one another and amount to something—and, believe it or not, they did! Bible reading times got a little longer and I felt myself more eager to read as time went by. I found myself praying more frequently throughout the day, able to understand what Paul meant about praying without ceasing (not actually going that far myself, but at least understanding that such a feat might be possible and not thinking that Paul was totally insane and obviously didn't have kids or a normal job!) The point is, it all started with tiny steps that I could do here and there despite my busy schedule--little layers I could build into my existing day.

As I layered on more learning and more times with God, I realized that it helped when I turned certain layers into habits. I know the word “habits” sounds like the big, overly ambitious ideas that didn’t work for me in the first place, but I’m talking about really small habits, like “I pray for three minutes as I drive to pick up my son from sports practice. I do not turn on the radio,” or “I subscribe to an email devotional and make sure I read it before I start any other work on my computer.” When I did this I discovered that times with God or thinking about God were happening naturally and on “auto-pilot” throughout the day. They no longer took tremendous effort. They no longer had to be written on a “to-do” list in order for me to remember to do them. And of course, God was doing His work during this time period, meeting me more than halfway and growing my efforts. My baby steps and habits were really just acts of opening up more channels to Him, allowing Him more times to speak to me.

If you think this approach would work for you, think about a few little things you can do within your existing schedule—a few little habits you can establish—that will help you turn your thoughts more frequently toward God throughout the day. Over the next week or so, I’ll offer some more ideas that worked for me. And feel free to post comments on anything that has worked for you.

Time to Check Our Habits!

Well, I guess I am finally forced to admit that summer is over. Things are settling down into a Fall routine. The back-to-school clothes and supplies have been bought, the kids’ bus schedule has begun to normalize, and we’ve gotten used to the alarm going off at the outrageously early hour now necessary since my daughter started high school. (Why is it that high schools start earlier than elementary schools?? The elementary-age kids have been up for hours trying to find something to do while the high schoolers straggle out to the bus half-dead.)

Even if you don’t have school age kids, Fall usually means a change in routine—whether you’re beginning to put on the push toward the end of the fiscal year, taking on that home improvement project that didn't get done last Spring, or dealing with the boss who has come back from vacation all charged up with new ideas for you to implement. Or maybe you're in school or taking a night course. Whatever the change in routine—even a subtle one--it is an important time to review our habits towards God. If we don’t take time to readjust our spiritual habits to the new schedules forced upon us, it’s amazingly easy to let spiritual priorities slide. We’re liable to wake up around New Year’s thinking, “I wonder why I never seem to follow through on my New Year’s resolutions to grow spiritually? Guess I’ll just resolve for the tenth year in a row to start having a Quiet Time.”

I think this constant review as circumstances change around us is in some sense what God means in the New Testament when He tells us to be alert or what He meant in the Old Testament when He frequently told His people to “Consider your ways.” He is saying, “Hey, stay awake to what’s going on in your life. Don’t let My things slide.”

Look at the September habits in the sidebar. For those of you who read by email, the habits are:
--Praying for three minutes three times a day
--Reading the New Testament for 7-8 minutes a day
--Reading the Old Testament for 2 minutes a day
--Turning off as much extraneous noise as possible throughout the day

How are you doing with these? Are your times with God getting squeezed out by the busy-ness of Fall? Did some of your habits (like mine) slip during the lazy days of summer and you need to reestablish them? Just take a couple minutes to think about your new schedule, commitments, and pressures and figure out how to keep your times with God a priority.

Our Habits as Sacrifices to God--Never a Waste!

We have some new readers in the past couple weeks so I thought it might be helpful to say a word or two on what this blog is generally about. It's about developing some decent spiritual habits--praying, reading the Bible, giving God quiet moments during the day--so that we can make space in our lives to hear His voice and begin to know Him better. In daily lives that are already crowded, that's not always easy and doesn't always seem immediately successful. Here's a thought from Elisabeth Elliot that I find encouraging at times when it seems my efforts fall flat:

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.

Let us not be "weary in well-doing," or discouraged in the pursuit of holiness. Let us, like Moses, go to the Rock of Horeb--and God says to us what He said to him, "You will find me waiting for you there" (Ex 17:6 NEB).

From Elisabeth Elliot's A Lamp For My Feet

Showing Up to Learn

Several of my blogs lately have reflected something that I have been learning: that we grow not through our own self-effort but through the Holy Spirit’s effort in our lives. Yet as soon as I think I have grasped that truth, I am bombarded with teaching about how we need to work at our spiritual growth. Elisabeth Elliot’s devotional and Keswick’s Victory Call today both hammered home the work-at-it idea. Even the book I am reading, Mike Flynn’s How To Be Good Without Really Trying, despite its title, starts out with a longish discussion about how Christian faith is about doing and not just hearing!

So what am I to think? I come back to the idea that spiritual growth is about putting forth the effort necessary to put ourselves in the place that God can do the work in us (i.e., making sure we remain attached to the vine so the sap can flow and walking through the door into the room where God is working). I looked around for a way to explain this more fully to myself and God brought the following example to mind.

This time last year the school district told us that our daughter could start Algebra I in the fall if we were willing. Saying yes took a scary leap of faith since it would mean Callie would skip a year of math instruction—the Pre-Algebra year—that her soon-to-be classmates had already had. Although she had been a decent math student, she is clearly not a natural whiz at the subject. She could fail miserably. But we went ahead and in the fall I spoke to the Algebra teacher about our concerns that Callie did not have the necessary background to keep up with the class. The teacher told me to relax. “If she comes to class and does the homework, I will fill in any gaps. I am aware of her current level of understanding and I will keep an eye on her. If she has any problems, she can come to me during recess or after school. I am always available to her. I will make sure she gets through this class if she wants to.” At the time I remember feeling surprised that the teacher took on so much of the responsibility for Callie's learning the subject--and that she was so confident Callie would succeed--so long as Callie demonstrated a willing attitude.

And so began a year in which Callie demonstrated her willingness. She did the homework everyday. If she didn’t understand something, she went in during recess. I would estimate that she monopolized the teacher’s lunch hour at least twice a week all year long. She spent many hours over the course of the year alone with the teacher.

Callie not only passed the class, she got an A. Did she teach herself Algebra this year through the strength of her own efforts? No, there is no way she could have learned this material on her own or by natural instinct—she just doesn’t have that level of ability. But she deliberately put herself in the position that the teacher could teach her Algebra. Slowly, she was transformed from a person who didn’t even know Pre-Algebra to a competent Algebra problem solver--all she had to do was put herself into the hands of that teacher.

You get the point right? What God wants for us is to become Christ-like, but we don’t have the ability to achieve this transformation on our own. Our inability is not a problem because He is the one who is going to transform us--but He can only do so if we put ourselves in a position where He can do it. We have to make ourselves available to be taught.

This month, evaluate how fully you are putting yourself in a position to be transformed. Are you showing up to class everyday? Are you doing the assignments? Are you referring to the textbook frequently? Are you asking the teacher for individual help? How often? Use the Algebra example as a guide to asses whether the level of your efforts truly demonstrates a willingness to learn. I can't tell you how much effort is "enough" for you--it really is more a matter of how willing you are and how you translate that willingness into determined action that overcomes natural laziness and your desire to do other stuff like watch TV, etc. If Callie had shown up to class only half the time and opened her book only once or twice a week, what would the teacher have thought of her efforts? Would the teacher have made herself so available to help a student who skipped homework assignments because she was too busy IMing or watching American Idol? Callie probably would have ended the year knowing more about Algebra than when she started but I doubt she would have developed the cooperative and dynamic relationship with the teacher that enabled her to really triumph in the class.

We’ve got an incredibly competent and available teacher, but we have to show up in order to learn.