Advent Reflections 04
Liz shares weekly reflections on the period of advent.
This past year I had a sabbatical and felt the prompt to look into the practice of solitude and silence. I have dabbled in it a bit and taught on it at Onelife, but this felt different. I discovered I have been OK with solitude and silence because it’s always had an end point – the end of my day when I collected the kids or got home. This time I was away on my own for four days. It was like I was freefalling and waiting for it to end. Distraction pulled at me, comfort nagged me to make it easier, and boredom came knocking faster than I expected.
At some point during this time I read Psalm 46:10: ‘Be still and know that I am God.’ I had read this a thousand times, but in the silence I sensed the Holy Spirit ask me to pay deeper attention.
We use the English words ‘Be still’ but in Hebrew there are two words which relate to this:
‘Rapha’ is the root word, and it is the act of – the fruit of – being still
‘Harpu’ is the command: be still, release, surrender, cease striving.
To be still isn’t to engage in self care, wellbeing or mindfulness. To be still and know that he is God is an uncomfortable level of trust and surrender. My experience was that before I knew the comfort of the fact that he is God, I had to uncomfortably let go of some other things first. Silence and solitude does that. It’s why Jesus did it and it’s why its an ancient practice which has shaped Christian leaders through the generations.
This is one of the most counter-cultural tools we can give young people today. It’s a long journey and in our Rhythm devotional we have started with a simple exercise called ‘Pause’. Every day, before they reach for their phones, before their day begins, in a corner of their room for a couple of minutes young people are beginning to learn silence and stillness and Jesus is meeting them in that space.
Christmas does not lend itself to silence and solitude, so why not be a bit radical and begin right in the middle of the madness and see they impact it can have? It might be uncomfortable, it’s certainly inconvenient, but what if the counter flow of silence enables God to speak to you clearer than he ever has before? Start with three minutes each day. Perhaps pray a simple prayer before you start. Don’t try to make every moment profound – sometimes it might just be about realising all the things you have in your brain, but the invitation is to begin and see what happens.