A Quiet Place...

This past week in The Bridge we started off our series called "Recharge: Filling up our Spiritual Batteries." This series is designed to teach people, inspire people and help them understand that Sunday is truly the climax of the week that we get ready for...as well as being the kick off to the week that fills us up. I do wonder what worship would be like if we spent all week getting ready for the main event.

This past week the theme was "prayer." If you know The Bridge, you know that we don't do things normally, we like to let the congregation experience the theme, rather than hear about it. So after we let the prophet/poet Robert Morris inspire us with prayer through poetry and listening to God we had the chance to experience "listening" with a silent video that was 6 minutes long. It was really interesting as you could hear many feet start to tap, many chairs start to scoot around, and people were obviously uncomfortable with the quiet place we created.

It got me to thinking, what would life be like with more silence in our life? Many people commented on how awesome worship was, not only in a powerful sense, but in a restful, redeeming sense.

I truly think we have sinned too long in tricking our own minds that we need to be stimulated at all times. We have become afraid of low test scores and blamed understimulation in schools and not enough time studying. We have pushed young kids in athletics starting at age 4, in hopes that they will get the most posh job in the world, professional sports...also the most idolistic. But what is we let our souls be stimulated by God in the silence?

I know that God can speak through music, sermons, conversations and any way that God is revealed, but there is something organic in silence that is natural and relaxing. There is a strange eerieness that something is there, but it's not obvious. That is God. I truly believe that God is always present, and is most present when it's the least obvious. These are the times that hit us 10 minutes, an hour, a day, a week later and blow us away, leaving a smile on our hearts and a joyful spirit in our souls.

I've been doing my best to take more time away from the office this week, even eating by myself in silence, or coming home to relax a little more in silence...simply to reconnect to life without all the things we think we need, but don't. And I have found that the silence has helped me in conversation with my wife, church staff and friends because now I have listened and know how to listen to them. I also am not overstimulated and wishing they would stop talking. Instead I hlove their conversation.

When God's voice is the only one present...it is restful, not bothersome. It is inspirational and sometimes kicks your butt. When God's voice is the only one present in the silence, it is unsettling, but invigorating.

I encourage you to take more time for silence and solitude. Train yourself to turn off the TV, the radio, your cell phone, the ipod you can't live without. Sit, lay, walk, run, stand in silence. Start with 4 minutes and add a minute each day for a week. Then on the next week start at 10 minutes and add a minute each day. Work your way towards 30 minutes a day, and maybe more after that. Make your schedule look like someone who wants to hear God's voice.