Where to Meet God

 

 In our Ash Wednesday worship service (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9M7dgGWufo0), I invited our church to practice silence and solitude as spiritual disciplines this year in the season of Lent. The challenge is, from Ash Wednesday to Easter Sunday, spend 30 minutes a day in silence and solitude. I believe God will speak to you, in the silence, if you take up this practice

            I found it to be difficult. In the silence, I think about the NCAA basketball tournament, the workout I’m going to try to get done at the YMCA, the tasks I need to get accomplished that afternoon, and 1000 other things. As soon as I drive one distraction from my mind, another takes its place. Some days I can get really quiet and centered so that I give God my full attention. Other days, I spend 30 minutes reaching for God with one hand and fending off competing thoughts with the other.

            This practice takes practice. This very morning, frustrated, I started writing in my journal about my frustration. I was drawn to Lamentations 3:23. God’s mercy is new every morning. God always has more grace to give, and I always need it, and He always gives it. So I thought, if God gives me grace, I’ll extend grace to myself. I finished a distracted 30 minutes. Tomorrow, I’ll try again.

            That’s my word for you. Try again. And again. And again. Relationships demand commitment and sticktoitiveness. In silence, we tune out other stimuli in order to give God our full attention. Learning to be still; learning to hear with the heart; it all takes effort and trial and error. If today’s effort in silent mediation faltered, try again tomorrow.

“It is good to sit alone in silence” (Lamentations 3:27). My prayer is first, you’ll try this, silent prayer, every day, 30 minutes; and second, as you do, you’ll discover why the writer of Lamentations says this is “good.” It is because the solitude and silence are where we meet God.