Silence and solitude are two disciplines that our culture fears. We stay as far away from silence and solitude as we can. We make ourselves busy, rushed, and complicated. We dismiss the simplicity of life and force our lives to be so full of... anything and everything. But I am fairly confident in saying that this is not how it was intended to be. I don't think that God really wants us to be stressed out and busy all the time. There must be a way out of this hole. Wait a minute... there is!
It's called let's slow down. Get away from the busyness and the noise. We need time to reflect, relax, and get rejuvinated. All too often, we are don't listen to the voice of God. We are too noisey, busy, preoccupied, and rushed to listen to Him. We think that we dont have the time... but we do. We just need to get away from the demands of our lives, turn the volume off, and focus solely on the Lord.
This evening I just returned from a three day Spiritual Formation Retreat with my class. It was much needed. Over the course of our time there we spent 7 hours in silence and solitude. We weren't even supposed to hum to ourselves. Complete silence. Its a scary thing at first, but as i got into it, I learned to absolutly love and cheerish this time. It was a time to not worry about what was going on in my life. A time to listen to the still small, yet powerful voice of God through His creation, Word, and Spirit. I didn't have to worry about doing all the talking. I just got to listen to what He wanted to tell me. It was so refreshing. I really was at a point where I needed this badly.
I've come back to the real life now though. I'm back at Tyndale in a busy world. So what do I do with what I've experienced? Well I do know that I feel move motivated, passionate, and excited about life in general. But how can I incorporate this into my everyday life. I realize that it is completely impossible to spend 5 hours in silence and solitude each day... but something must be possible.
I've realized that I can't do life on my own. I need Gods strength. So I think that each day the follower of Christ needs to take that time of quiet reflection on the Lord. I know I wasn't really doing this before hand. But I've seen how important and life giving it truly is.
It's comforting to know that we dont have to have all the answers. We don't have to have our lives all figured out. We just need to give it all up to God. Let Him take care of us because we do a fairly poor job of that.
We need to be quiet. Stop talking. Listen. Be still before God.
