One of the great Biblical themes is about learning to be still and listening for and experiencing the presence of God.
The Psalm writer says: “.… I am humbled and quieted in your presence. Like a contented child who rests on its mother’s lap, I’m your resting child and my soul is content in you. O people of God, your time has come to quietly trust, waiting upon the Lord now and forever….” Psalm 131:2-3 (TPT)
The image is of a small child resting quietly, carried in its mothers arms.
The image is of a small child resting quietly, carried in its mothers arms.
The Psalmist also says: “…Be still before the Lord, and wait patiently for him; do not fret when people succeed in their ways, when they carry out their wicked schemes.” Psalm 37:7 (NIV)
Being still; waiting with patience can be hard when you are itching to get out there and fix things right now, yourself!
The prophet Jeremiah writes the Book of Lamentations at the most distressing time anyone could imagine. Jerusalem had been destroyed. The people were in captivity — everything they had known and hoped for had traumatically ended and Jeremiah was bewildered and lost. Yet the way forward, is to sit quietly and wait on the Lord. Jeremiah writes this in Lamentations 3: 18-32
“… Everything I had hoped for from the Lord is lost! The thought of my suffering and homelessness is bitter beyond words. 20 I will never forget this awful time, as I grieve over my loss. Yet… I still dare to hope, when I remember this: The faithful love of the Lord never ends! God’s mercies never cease. 23 Great is his faithfulness; his mercies begin afresh each morning. …. [26] So it is good to wait quietly for salvation from the Lord. … 28 Let them sit alone in silence beneath the Lord’s demands. … 31 For no one is abandoned by the Lord forever. 32 Though he brings grief, he also shows compassion because of the greatness of his unfailing love….” Lamentations 3: 18-32
In the face of confusion, bewilderment, frustration, the prophet sits quietly and waits and weeps and reflects on the faithfulness of his God.
Yet in the busyness of modern life, and particularly in Stressful times or times of sweeping change or even in times like what we are facing now — Bewildering; confusing and distressing — the “noise and busyness” around us and even more — the “noise” and ceaseless “busyness” and “restlessness” in our head-space means we can lose our connection with God.
Restlessness and anxiety and fear and “what-ifs” and “It all feels hopeless” thinking affects our feelings and our health and our relationships and our confidence and our wellbeing and our relationship with God.
Just as we most need to experience the presence of God- just when we need to know the closeness of the Lord — it can feel as if every trace of God’s presence has disappeared!
God is present, but it takes discipline and intentionality to see him.
I remember the first time I saw one of those magic eye 3-D
pictures. It was outside an Art-Shop in a busy Mall and quite a crowd had stopped to gaze at it. I stopped, and looked at what looked like an unintelligible blur of colour.
It made no sense at all. Yet every few minutes one of the others in the crowd who’d been focussing intensely would nod, smile and say: “Ahhh, I see it now! Beautiful, beautiful!”
Then they’d walk away with their head held high. I was getting frustrated. So I stopped. Put down my bags, took a deep breathe and gave the picture my full intention. I relaxed, I took my time and looked deeply — and then I saw it, and the ugly 2D blur became an amazing, breathtaking 3D picture! But it took time, and it took focus to contemplate it and see it!
The prophet Jeremiah writes the Book of Lamentations at the most distressing time anyone could imagine. Jerusalem had been destroyed. The people were in captivity — everything they had known and hoped for had traumatically ended and Jeremiah was bewildered and lost. Yet the way forward, is to sit quietly and wait on the Lord. Jeremiah writes this in Lamentations 3: 18-32
“… Everything I had hoped for from the Lord is lost! The thought of my suffering and homelessness is bitter beyond words. 20 I will never forget this awful time, as I grieve over my loss. Yet… I still dare to hope, when I remember this: The faithful love of the Lord never ends! God’s mercies never cease. 23 Great is his faithfulness; his mercies begin afresh each morning. …. [26] So it is good to wait quietly for salvation from the Lord. … 28 Let them sit alone in silence beneath the Lord’s demands. … 31 For no one is abandoned by the Lord forever. 32 Though he brings grief, he also shows compassion because of the greatness of his unfailing love….” Lamentations 3: 18-32
In the face of confusion, bewilderment, frustration, the prophet sits quietly and waits and weeps and reflects on the faithfulness of his God.
Yet in the busyness of modern life, and particularly in Stressful times or times of sweeping change or even in times like what we are facing now — Bewildering; confusing and distressing — the “noise and busyness” around us and even more — the “noise” and ceaseless “busyness” and “restlessness” in our head-space means we can lose our connection with God.
Restlessness and anxiety and fear and “what-ifs” and “It all feels hopeless” thinking affects our feelings and our health and our relationships and our confidence and our wellbeing and our relationship with God.
Just as we most need to experience the presence of God- just when we need to know the closeness of the Lord — it can feel as if every trace of God’s presence has disappeared!
God is present, but it takes discipline and intentionality to see him.
I remember the first time I saw one of those magic eye 3-D
It made no sense at all. Yet every few minutes one of the others in the crowd who’d been focussing intensely would nod, smile and say: “Ahhh, I see it now! Beautiful, beautiful!”
Then they’d walk away with their head held high. I was getting frustrated. So I stopped. Put down my bags, took a deep breathe and gave the picture my full intention. I relaxed, I took my time and looked deeply — and then I saw it, and the ugly 2D blur became an amazing, breathtaking 3D picture! But it took time, and it took focus to contemplate it and see it!
That’s why we humans need to practice stillness. To be still takes practice It takes discipline. Discipline is related to the word disciple! It takes discipline to see God and hear as Elijah puts it: — “Small still voice.”
That’s why the Bible talks about a close Relationship with God. It's why the Bible talks about Meditating on God
I love the description of Enoch in Genesis. It says: “…Enoch walked faithfully with God; then he was no more, because God took him away.” Genesis 5:24
I remember hearing of a small kid explaining their Sunday school lesson about Enoch: “Enoch and God used to go for really really long walks together. One day, they walked so far, God said to Enoch, “Enoch, we’ve walked so far together and now we are closer to my place than yours. Why don’t you come and stay at my place?”
Psalm 145:5 says: “… On the glorious splendour of Your majesty. And on Your wonderful works, I will meditate."
In Joshua 1:8 God says: “.. Keep this Book of the Law always on your lips; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it….”
Psalm 63:6 “… 6 On my bed I remember you; I think of you through the watches of the night.”
Psalm 1: 1 "Blessed is the one who does not walk in step with the wicked or stand in the way that sinners take or sit in the company of mockers, 2 but whose delight is in the law of the LORD, and who meditates on his law day and night. …"
Learning to abide in Christ, and living in intimate relationship with him has always ben a challenge for the Church.
By the third century after Christ, Christianity had become the main religion of the Roman empire. All sorted of people joined up. Worship became increasingly about liturgical ritual in extravagant buildings on Sundays led by powerful clerics.
“Prayers” became increasingly formulas that get recited; requests and demands that get made. For many, prayer became transactional. There were those who weren’t content with the mainstream.
They wanted to go deeper, to rediscover what it meant to truly mediate on God, to contemplate God, to rest in God and feed on his Word, to grow in awareness and closeness to him.
These were the Desert fathers and mothers of the 3rd and 4th centuries, and later the monastics and mystics of the middle ages. We still recognise the maturity of the one who has learnt to be still and just contemplate God and mediate on his Word.
Thy understand that to abide in Christ is a 24/7 posture — it’s a way of life; a habit not just a once-a-week activity.
American author and pastor AW Tozer, of the early 1900s writes: “…Prayer is always in danger of degenerating into a glorified gold rush. How to get things from God occupies most books … In our fast-paced life … we have no time for contemplation. We have no time to answer God when He calls. …. I think that some of the greatest prayer is prayer where you don’t say one single word or ask for anything. . … Constantly practice the habit of gazing inwardly upon God.”
Henri Nouwen says: “…Contemplative prayer is not a way of being busy with God instead of with people — but it is an attitude in which we recognize God as the ultimate priority by being ‘useless’ in his presence; by standing in front of him without anything to show, …. and by allowing him to enter our emptiness... … It cuts a hole in our busyness and reminds us and others that it is God and not we who creates and sustains the world."
It’s living out daily as Paul puts it that in Jesus: “…the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, and you have been filled in him, who is the head of all rule and authority." (Colossians 2:8-9)
That means cultivating the discipline of being with Jesus as a way of being, all the time, in spite of our circumstances.
Dale Schlafer in ‘Teaching Men to Pray writes of once meeting an elderly Chinese Pastor at a Conference:
“… The highlight occurred one afternoon when we were introduced to an old Chinese pastor. We were told that he had been in prison for almost twenty years. Most of that time had been served in solitary confinement. The Communist guards hated him and gave him the worst job they could, working in the cesspool - the sewage pond- of the prison. lt was such a disgusting and filthy job that his guards would not stay there.
This is what the Chinese Pastor said: 'This cesspool became
To abide in Christ; to be still in his presence and contemplate
Our quiet times; our devotional life; our practicing stillness before God and resting in him is so important — but particularly hard because our routines and rhythms of life are gone. It becomes too easy to live in crisis mode and ‘park’ our relationship with God till normality returns!
Go to the DVBC Youtube page HERE to find the Diamo Online Service 3 May 2020, on the theme of stillness. Click HERE for the talk on Elijah in the wilderness.
