Sermon on Psalm 19 and freedom

Sunday 15 April 2012

6:30 service @ Windsor Park

Psalm 19

In light of the Easter weekend we have just celebrated…

Last week at Easter Camp, we had a Scottish man telling the Easter story, and during the Sunday reading, where he talked about Christ’s resurrection, he went on to talk about thefreedom that had come about. I loved it because in his Scottish accent it reminded me of William Wallace from the movie Braveheart. It’s a great movie about this Scottish man William Wallace, who in the Middle Ages led the Scottish rebellion against the ruling English. Now… I apologise for potentially ruining the movie here… At the end of the film there’s thisglorious scene with one of the most courageous acts of defiance ever! In the scene we see William Wallace lying on a table in front of a large English crowd, and he’s being tortured, with the English demanding him to repent for his rebellion. But instead of giving them the confession they desire, in his thick Scottish accent, Wallace cries out a glorious long…

SUMMATION OF EASTER STORY:

Of course, the freedom the Scottish man was speaking about at Easter Camp was a bit different… Christ wasn’t dying for the freedom of the Scottish, but for the freedom of all from the burden of sin. If I were to sum up the Easter story, I would say that by Jesus’ becoming sin on our behalf, even though he didn’t, and by his dying on the cross to remove our sin, he redeemed us… That was Good Friday. And then we get Easter Sunday, when Christ was resurrected from the dead. Fifty days later, the Holy Spirit was given to the disciples at Pentecost, and with it came our freedom!

But what does that even mean? What is freedom? Does it mean we are free to do what we want… to live without rules or authority? Tonight we’re going to look at a psalm king David wrote, hundreds of years before Jesus had brought freedom. Back then God had given the Israelites all sorts of rules and commandments, which we can still find in the first five books of the Bible. We call these books the Torah. It was the Israelite’s burden to obey these laws, and if any of you have tried to read the Torah, you would know there were quite a few of them!

So we’re going to turn to David’s Psalm 19, to see what he thought of the laws. We’ll see if the Israelites thought the laws were a bad thing, and if they wanted freedom from a bossy God… This psalm talks about how God revealed himself to the Israelites in different ways, and howgood – and perhaps freeing, these revelations were. It also picks up on the inevitability of divine judgement, that one day we will all face…

Psalm 19:1-4a

The psalm begins…

The heavens declare the glory of God;

the skies proclaim the work of his hands.

Day after day they pour forth speech;

night after night they display knowledge.

There is no speech or language

where their voice is not heard.

Their voice goes out into all the earth,

their words to the ends of the world.

EXEGESIS

So the psalm starts off with David writing about how nature reveals God’s glory to all people. He’s saying that for those who believe in God, nature gives us a glimpse of who he is. Have you ever looked at something of creation and gone, Man! God is good!

A couple of years ago, I was up at Tawhwaranui with some friends, and one night we were singing worship songs on the beach. It was a nice clear night, with the moon big and bright. It made us think God is pretty good… It got even better though, because as we were watching the moon’s reflection on the sea, a pod of dolphins swam past in the reflection! It was just too good! For a while we just let loose in singing, because as this psalm is saying, nature was declaring the glory of God! As He revealed himself through his creation, we felt freedom to worship without fear or pride. So God gives freedom as he reveals himself.

Let’s read on…

Psalm 19:4b-6

In the heavens he has pitched a tent for the sun,

which is like a bridegroom coming forth from his pavilion,

like a champion rejoicing to run his course.

It rises at one end of the heavens

and makes its circuit to the other;

nothing is hidden from its heat.

EXEGESIS

So here David gives the sun as a specific example of how God reveals his glory. Clearly in this description there’s a lot of joy and celebration: as the sun crosses the skies and all are warmed by it, so God reveals himself and people are glad of him. But it also gives a warning – especially the last line: ‘nothing is hidden from his heat.’ It’s a reminder that God sees all that we do, and that in the end, everyone will be resurrected to face judgement, for better or worse.

This connection between the sun and judgement would have been familiar to the audience in Israel, because the surrounding nations worshiped the sun deity Utu, or Shamash. These people thought of the sun as the god of justice. David uses this to remind his people of God’s glory, reminding them that God has the power to judge.

Of course, nature doesn’t give us a complete knowledge of God – you can’t see a tree and know that God thinks it’s bad to murder somebody, or that there even is a God. And so unlike the surrounding tribes who only had nature and human instinct to go on, the Israelites had the laws that God revealed to Moses, the Torah, which guided them in how to live in a way that was pleasing to God. By the Torah, God revealed to them more of who He is.

And so the psalm now moves from the symbolic proclamations of nature, to the very concrete and robust Torah.

Psalm 19:7-11

The law of the Lord is perfect,

reviving the soul.

The statutes of the Lord are trustworthy,

making wise the simple.

The precepts of the Lord are right,

giving joy to the heart.

The commands of the Lord are radiant,

giving light to the eyes.

The fear of the Lord is pure,

enduring for ever.

The ordinances of the Lord are sure

and altogether righteous.

They are more precious than gold,

than much pure gold;

they are sweeter than honey,

than honey from the comb.

By them is your servant warned;

in keeping them there is great reward.

EXEGESIS

When I first read this, I was a bit surprised. My impression of the Old Testament laws had always been that they opposed freedom. I’d always thought the Israelites must have found God to be really oppressive and overly demanding… A bit of a killjoy! But here we see David calls the laws perfect… trustworthy… right… radiant… He says that the laws revive the soul, theymake wise the simple, they give JOY to the heart… and they give light to the eyes… Clearly my impression was wrong!

But why did they consider the Torah to be such a good thing? If we look at the context, we find it starts to make sense…

You see… for pretty much all the Old Testament history, the Israelites lived among tribes and nations that worshiped all sorts of gods – before, I mentioned the sun god Utu as an example. They also called trees and rocks their gods, and they carved and sculpted things to worship. These people were lost. They didn’t recognise God’s revelation of Himself, and so they didn’t know Him.

The Israelites were unique though. They were God’s chosen nation, because God had made an agreement their forefather Abraham. The deal was, God would be their God, and they would be his people. He would give them land, and they would become a great nation.

Coming forward several hundred years, we see that God revealed more to the Israelites, when he gave the laws to Moses in the desert. By David’s time we see many of the promises of the agreement were being fulfilled: the Israelites had become a large and powerful nation. God blessed them with prosperity, and they won many battles.

This psalm is telling us about how good God’s revelations were – his creation and his laws. I’m sure for many of us, when we think about the Torah, or we try to read it, we struggle to recognise the joy of having these rules. The Israelites were glad, because they found freedom in knowing what God wanted. It was their great treasure to know God and to be his chosen nation! They had a sure guide, unlike the surrounding nations who were lost, trying to fend for themselves!

Let’s read the last section of the psalm…

Psalm 19:12-14

Who can discern his errors?

Forgive my hidden faults.

Keep your servant also from wilful sins;

may they not rule over me.

Then I will be blameless,

innocent of great transgression,

May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart

be pleasing in your sight,

O Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer.

EXEGESIS

Here we read that it wasn’t a God with lots of stupid rules who David felt oppressed by, but sin. David longed for freedom from the sin that the laws revealed! In a strange way, the laws were in fact freedom giving! We know there were many laws, and they were hard to follow… But consider where the Israelites would be without them: they’d be just like the neighbouring pagan nations, up the creek without a paddle. For the Israelites, they had a paddle in the Torah, because it taught them about God, and it told them what He wanted. And so with His laws, God had given the Israelites a taste of freedom, because they pointed towards what it means to live in right relationship with God and with each other.

Their freedom wasn’t complete though, because as with nature, God had only revealed a bit of himself in the laws. They could only point at true freedom. The Israelites could only know Him in a disconnected way, because they didn’t yet have freedom from sin. No amount of rule abiding could save them from the fact they were fallen human beings.

COMPLETE FREEDOM IN JESUS

And this brings us back to the Easter story we celebrated last weekend! … For David and the Old Testament Israelites, they only knew partial freedom: they had a God who cared for them, and who showed them what He wanted, but he hadn’t fully revealed himself, and they weren’t yet redeemed. Enter Jesus, the Son of God. In him we found God fully revealed, because he was fully God. Jesus came to free us from sin, and to invite us into relationship with him – he even called us his friends! This is where our freedom extends from what the Israelites had. Jesus didn’t get rid of the law as if that was the bad thing. Rather, he freed us from the sin that the law accused us of. God didn’t free us from the need to live rightly - he freed us to have relationship with him, even though we don’t live rightly.

These days I think there’s a perception that living good and obedient lives isn’t really that important. People seem to believe that Jesus freed us to do what we want. I remember in school people saying they would just continue to live as they wanted, and then just before they died they would apologise to Jesus and he’d be cool with it – for them Jesus was just a ‘Get out of hell free’ card. Rather than having a concern for the authority of God, and pursuing righteousliving, our society has developed a strong, ‘Just Do It’ attitude. The world tells us we’re free to do as we want, to indulge in whatever we like, to be our own person. It says we’re free to sleep around, just so long as we don’t do any physical damage. It says we’re free to get drunk, to take drugs, to climb the career ladder, and the social ladder. Worldly freedom is having money to spend as we please. And too often Christians fall for this “freedom.” But if that’s the freedom we’re living for, we’re selling ourselves short…

You see, many of us have missed the joy that comes from following God, and being obedient to his ways! We’ve just read that for David it was his sheer joy to have the law, which was a sure guide of what God wanted of him. I don’t believe he liked it just because he liked rules… He liked it because it was the word of God, and he found freedom in knowing God. In God, David found clear purpose and direction, and he had real hope! The people of the nations around him didn’t know God, and so they made gods of their own, to try and give their lives meaning and purpose. And that’s why people are doing the same thing today! Instead of looking to God for our meaning and purpose, we’re looking to careers, relationships, money, etc…

We do have the “freedom” to do what we want, but it’s not real freedom… Real freedom comes in knowing our heavenly Father, and Jesus has made this relationship possible. He freed us from sin. It’s therefore our joy in this freedom-giving relationship to be obedient to God, to do his will – that’s our joy! For David the laws were a gift, and pointed to freedom. In Jesus wehave freedom, and so all the more we should want to obey him! Jesus sums up what it means to obey in Matthew 25:37-39: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and all your mind.” This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: “Love your neighbour as yourself.” The ability to love God and to love others – that’s freedom. Our relationship with God, where we pursue him daily, should be freeing us to live incredibly loving lives! Our friendship with Jesus should release us from being too concerned for ourselves, to a devoted and joyful obedience to him, which we actually find isn't oppressive and wearisome, but life-giving and ultimately freeing! Our love of God should free us to let loose! If you know Jesus and the freedom he has given, pursue him and love his ways! If you don’t know Jesus, get to know him – in him there is real freedom.

Sermon on Solitude and Silence

Hey people. I had the privilege of speaking at the Sunday @ 5 service at Windsor Park a few weeks ago. It's mainly a group of young adults. My topic was silence and solitude, and I spoke for about 45mins, so be warned! I don't think there's a recording of it, so here are the notes I read from. Hope you get something out of it! By the way, you should definitely watch the Baxter Kruger video. He tells some pretty fantastic stories that bring the gospel out loud and clear!

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I’m excited to be speaking to you all about this topic of silence and solitude tonight; firstly, because it’s such a privilege to be asked to speak to such a gregarious and gracious bunch of young … and… not so young adults…; second! I believe this topic is one of massive significance for the western church, and especially for a North Shore church such as Windsor Park….

MIDDLE CLASS SYNDROME…

Now… I say especially for a church such as ours truly on the North Shore, because, I think it’s fair to say, most of us fall into the middle~to~upper classes of society… In the week gone by I had a class taught by my lecturer, Mick Duncan. He tackled the topic of class in New Zealand, and he suggested that there is one malady, one malaise… one… sickness, if you like, that is particularly attached to the middle class… Can anybody suggest what that malady might be?

BUSYNESS. Mick suggested that there’s an adrenaline we experience when we’re being highly active… that we’re addicted to busyness, to being active, to being occupied as we hurry from one thing to the next thing to the next thing…

Let’s get a picture of what these things are. (Write on whiteboard as people call out time-using activities. Fill board up).

Last week Amanda spoke about this type of lifestyle and the detrimental effects it has on people, physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. You may recall the extreme example of ‘Karoshi’, being death caused by overwork or exhaustion… She talked about the need to rest, to take Sabbath seriously and allow our bodies and souls to catch up. This week, I want to take us down a different path. I want to ask where we see Jesus in all of this, in the modern pace of life. I want to suggest that the practice of silence and solitude is something important and vital to this makeup. I also want to suggest that this practice can lead to a constant understanding of the Spirit’s presence, which allows Jesus not to become just another part of this makeup of our lives, but that it actually allows us to know Jesus in the midst of it all. What’s more, as we become more and more aware of the Spirit’s presence and we learn to submit to his ways in obedience, it’s my belief that the Father blesses us in fruitfulness and in joy, and we get to know the satisfaction of abiding in him. I’ll try to elaborate on some of these concepts as I go.

So before we talk about the practice of silence and solitude, I want to discuss why we’d want to do it in the first place.

ABIDE IN ME – JOHN 15

Picture with me if you will…

“We are Jesus’ disciples… (imagine yourselves as young adult Middle Eastern men who have been walking with Jesus for the past couple of years...)

“There’s Eleven of us now. Last night while we were eating the Passover meal together, Jesus told Judas to take off, and go do what he had to do. Some of us thought he was just going to get supplies for the feast tomorrow, but he still hasn’t come back. John reckons he’s the one who’s going to betray Jesus! We’re all a bit on edge…

“Since he’s been gone though, it’s just been the eleven of us with Jesus, and he’s been telling us some pretty amazing stuff! A lot of it, I have to admit we don’t really understand… I’m sure it will all come to make sense soon enough. Something seems pretty ominous, though I’m not exactly sure what… Jesus has been saying some spooky stuff actually – stuff like, ‘I will be with you only a little longer…’ He says he’s going somewhere we can’t follow… I don’t want him to leave – none of us do!… He’s the godliest person we’ve ever met… In fact… We’ve come to believe that he is the Son of God! That was made clear back when Jesus fed the 5000 men with those few loaves of bread and a couple of fish. Not to mention he walked on water, he’s been healing people, bringing demons out of people… He’s enabled us to do lots of that stuff too! It’s been incredible!

“Yes, it’s clear now: the Spirit of God is in this man, and he’s got it to give! He is of the Father, Yahweh who we worship! And so now it’s just him, and us eleven, and he’s been saying some wonderful things to us! He said that if we continue loving him – well… I mean how could we not?! …He said that if we do this, he will give us the Spirit of truth. Jesus also said to us, “He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and show myself to him.” How much greater is this than what those strict old Pharisees have always been telling us. This is freeing! Before I couldn’t see why I had to keep up all those rules; it just seemed like a whole lot of hard religious work. It seemed dead. But now all I want is to spend time with God, loving him, and loving others! These are exciting days…

“Jesus said some more stuff to us this morning. It was when we were walking through a vineyard on the way to the Kidron Valley. It was pretty powerful stuff - John reckons he’s going to write all this down some day…”

JOHN 15:1-17

“I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.

“I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. If anyone does not remain in me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish and it will be given you. This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.

“As the Father loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father’s commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no-one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit – fruit that will last. Then the Father will give you whatever you ask in my name. This is my command: Love each other.”

EXEGESIS

Andreas J. Kostenberger, who wrote the Baker Exegetical Commentary on the book of John expresses that ‘The illustration of a vine and its branches, even more intimate than the shepherd imagery in John 10, focuses on the organic, vital connection between the branches and the vine. In a major paradigm shift, Jesus’ presence among his disciples is about to be replaced with the Spirit’s taking up residence in believers.’ He goes on to suggest that ‘This spiritual relationship must be nurtured if Jesus’ followers are to remain connected to their exalted Lord,’ but we’ll come back to that.

THE TRIUNE RELATIONSHIP

As we read Jesus’ dialogue in the gospels, as we look at the major theological points of the Bible, and as we see how Jesus related with his disciples and the people he met, it’s plain to see that loving relationships are at the core of it. In the chapters of John leading up to Jesus’ being taken by the Roman officials in chapter 18, Jesus speaks in a massively Trinitarian way. By that, I mean he talks about the oneness of the Triune relationship between the Holy Spirit, himself and the Father. He talks about how they remain in each other; they dwell in each other; they love and adore each other. If you like big words, in theology we call it perichoresis. It refers to the mutual inter-penetration and indwelling within the threefold nature of the Trinity, God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

WE’RE CALLED INTO THE RELATIONSHIP

In these chapters he also makes promises and gives pictures inviting us to take part in that intimate relationship. In the previous chapter – chapter 14… Jesus explains that he when he goes… so when he returns to the Father after his death and resurrection, he will ask the Father, and the Father will send the Holy Spirit to us. By sending the Spirit, Jesus enables us to be in that relationship. In 14:20 he says, ‘On that day you will realise that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you.’ The passage we have here in chapter 15 perhaps shows that intimacy God has called us to most clearly, as he tells us to remain in him like the branches are attached to the vine. In this we have a picture of Christ having invited us into the perfect loving relationship between the Father and Son by the Holy Spirit. By the chapters that follow and the rest of the New Testament, we find that Christ has made this possible by his life, death and resurrection.

RELATIONSHIP THE KEY

I think before we talk about silence and solitude, before we go seeking God to transform us into Christ-likeness, we need to understand that at the core of that likeness needs to be a love of the Father, and a joy simply in being called up into that supreme relationship. As Jesus said, ‘I have told you this that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.’ We need to taste the gospel and understand the wonder of what it is Christ has done for us. I think this video interview with the theologian Baxter Kruger is a pretty wonderful demonstration of the gospel, and gives us a similar image to the vine passage.

http://www.gci.org/yi/kruger5 13:15-17:00 (WATCH THIS!)

We’ve been included! So… through this story, and through the passage about the vine, what I’m wanting to say is that provided we believe and accept Christ and the salvation he has offered us, we’re invited to partake in this amazing relationship, that previously we had no access to… Christ called into relationship with him, and he calls us to abide in him and enjoy it! Which brings us to the topic of silence and solitude. I now come back to what Kostenberger suggested, that ‘This spiritual relationship must be nurtured if we are to remain connected to Christ.’

CHRIST’S RHYTHM

Now before I go making statements that I think are wise and helpful, I want us to turn again to scripture…

Then I’ll try making the wise comments ;)

Ok, so there is a strong Pauline notion that Christ’s set the example for us in the way he lived, and that we should strive to imitate this example. While Jesus never specifically teaches about the need to go away on your own and be quiet, we certainly do see that it played a significant role in his ministry, and by implication, it should take a significant role in our own walks of faith.

So to start us off in looking at solitude, let’s look at some examples of Christ seeking solitude.

LUKE 4:40-44 (Sick come to Christ, he heals all, demons rebuked. Morning – desolate place. More ministry that evening).

Talk about the practical implications of the miracles being done – physically exhausting. Extremely busy schedule, yet stopping to spend time alone in the presence of God remained of utmost importance to Christ – more than sleeping. Compare to our busyness. (Write up what Jesus' schedule might have looked like on white board)

Compare to Amy Cleary on Mercy Ships in Togo... http://mercyships.org.nz/assets/files/Feb%2026%20Northern%20Advocate%20Amy%20Cleary.pdf

MARK 1:32-39 (Sick come, many healed; morning, finds quiet time before disciples urge him on to the next think, to which he obliges.)

MATTHEW 14 from 13b. (Jesus feeds the 5000, then in verses 22-23 we see Jesus dismisses the crowds, before going up onto the mountainside alone to pray. Immediately after this, Jesus performs another ridiculous miracle, walking across the waves to the disciples who were across the Sea of Galilee.)

What am I getting at here? RHYTHM!!!

In Christ’s life we see a constant rhythm of engagement, withdrawal, engagement, withdrawal… So we see that Jesus had a high esteem for the quiet place. In the midst of his intensely busy schedule, we see that he craved and consistently made time to be alone with his Father. This was where his abiding in the Father was rooted; it’s where he focused on his relationship with the Father – that’s not to say he wasn’t always in relationship with the Father – he definitely was! Rather, this was his quality time… his one-on-one time where he truly got to know the God he loved and adored. Jesus loved finding quiet places because he loved just being with his dad! And as in the vine story that we’ve looked at, the Father pruned him and tended to him, so that he would be able to bear more fruit. And so my point about the vine story and all that I’ve said so far, is that in Christ we too are loved by the Father, and that we too get to abide in him, and be tended by him. John 1 verses 12 to 13 reads: ‘to all who received him (… - that’s Christ), to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God – children born not of the natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.’ And so as children we spend time with our dad, who is the most wonderful dad imaginable! In this sense, quiet time isn’t a chore; it’s not a religious role to make God love us more, but it’s a privilege, a right! It’s awesome that we get to hang out one-on-one with God. Yet it seems that many of us don’t!

A FEW THOUGHTS ON SOLITUDE…

1: FINDING TIME FOR SOLITUDE IS HARD, BUT IMPORTANT.

So I’ve known I’d be speaking on solitude for a while now, and up until a couple of weeks ago I thought I had it all figured out in my head. You see, being a slovenly uni student, I was still on holiday until the end of February… so I spent the whole month working down south of the Bombay Hills doing a big gardening project. My role was to spruce up a new boarding school by planting hundreds of plants, so I would stay the week down there digging holes and come back to the Shore for my weekends. The school is in the country, on the edge of the Hunua Ranges, and it’s a really beautiful place: there’s a stream that goes right past the school; there’s a tramping track in the ranges that ends right at the school driveway; the road is just a quiet back-country road, nice and flat and perfect for bike rides and running… It was also really nice and sunny! So I was there for five weeks, just planting, and a lot of the time I was just staying down there on my own. I had nothing to worry about in the evenings, so basically it became a time of relative isolation, and it gave me a chance to be purposeful about quiet time. I started getting up at 6am to spend an hour and a half with the Lord. I mixed my ritual up each day, sometimes reading the Bible, sometimes going for a good walk; I went for a couple of bike rides, wrote in my diary, and sometimes I sat at the end of the grape vines, looking over the dewy green hills… as the sun rose… with cows munching grass…. It was pretty great times.

So basically my plan was to come back here, still on fire for Jesus. I figured getting up at 6am every day would continue to go well, and that before long I’d be completely in tune with the Spirit, pretty much being a perfect Christian.

Of course, reality struck with the return of uni and the city, along with the rest of my North Shorian busyness. I found going to bed at 10pm and getting up at 6 became a lot harder, with hang outs and activities like youth group to attend, with Facebook and the internet at my fingertips, and a never ending workload…. Of course, rather than saying ‘no’ to these things, the thing that I’ve been saying ‘no’ to is my quiet time… It’s always the first thing to go isn’t it? … I’m good at making excuses as to why other things are more important, even if they do seem like legitimately good things – uni work, chores, planning a sermon… But I want to challenge that attitude, because I believe it’s not what Jesus modelled for us… In Matthew 8 verses 18 to 20, we see him purposefully avoiding crowds who wanted his help. This isn’t to say that solitude constantly took Jesus out of important roles of serving – clearly from the passages we looked at before he was devoted to his God-given mission. But it does suggest that he placed a high value on his quiet time, and that constantly serving and working isn’t part of God’s will for us. As with the Sabbath in our week, we need to be making time for solitude in our day, to stop… and breath… and abide in the God we’re living for. Solitude is often hard to find and maintain, but it’s important and needs to be more highly valued.

A couple of suggestions about how to make solitude happen: accountability helps. For a while I had three friends who were committed to waking up at 6 and having quiet time too, so every morning at 6 we’d text each other, encouraging one another to get up. Often one person would be feeling really alive, while others would be not really into it. But because of the texting, which was usually quite funny, with inspiring Bible verses and funny quotes often being used, we’d manage to get each other up. Another suggestion is to make it fun! Solitude doesn’t have to just be sitting silently in your room – although this can be a good way of doing it. Me and my friends often did different things each day. Like I said, sometimes I’d go for a casual bike ride, or a walk, or find somewhere beautiful to sit. And so at the end of the week when we hung out, we’d compare what we got up to. It’s good to make your solitude something special! Something enjoyable! It doesn’t have to be a boring activity. Just remember, keep God as the focus of your quiet time. Don’t let it become a fitness activity. Don’t let it achieve something else at the same time – your quiet time with God is your quiet time with God.

2: SOLITUDE IS DONE WITH THE COMMUNITY IN VIEW.

A lot of people tend to think of solitude as avoiding people and just being quiet and brooding. They get a picture of someone going off to a shack in the woods, or maybe some monk… Someone who avoids hang outs and just sits in their room all day… Dalton Lifsey puts it differently: “Solitude is a deliberate pursuit of God with the people of community in view; isolation is a deliberate avoidance of God and people.” He says, “You’ve got to disengage from community so that when you re-enter you look at those people through the eyes of Jesus, not your broken and insecure eyes.”

Solitude is disengaging from the community and from life temporarily, so that you can deliberately pursue alone time with God, and abide in his love, with the intention of returning to the community, and to regular life refocused, and aware of the Spirit’s presence in the midst of it. It’s no surprise that at the end of the vine passage, after Jesus has talked about abiding in the Father and being tended by him, that his command is that we should love one another. We spend time in solitude, so that we can abide in Christ, so that we can love the people around us, and so that we can bear fruit in all that we’re doing! You need to disengage in order to engage!

3: SOLITUDE IS NOT JUST FOR INTROVERTS!

We are ALL called to spend time with our Father, and we all need to know the quiet place.

4: SOLITUDE IS DANGEROUS.

Solitude tends to bring things to the surface - things which in busyness are often avoided…

Early last year, when I was working fulltime at Café Windsor, I had plenty of time to myself to just think about things. I’d come out of a busy three years studying architecture, and so it was really the first time when things were going at a slower pace for me. It meant I had a lot of time in solitude, and I was talking to God about heavier stuff than I usually would. As I had more and more of this time, I found that I went from just filling it with saying things… You know, like praying for different people and different events. Telling God about the weather and about girls… By a process of time, I went from that to just being quiet and really reflecting on things. And that’s when things actually started to get painful. A lot of baggage came up, stuff that I hadn’t realised I was a part of me. Feelings of loneliness surfaced, even though I’ve always been surrounded by good and loving people… Feelings of dissatisfaction, of meaninglessness came up. I realised I was hurting quite a lot. And it’s not just me – this happens for most people. As we spend time in quiet with God, things that are deep inside us, that we perhaps weren’t even aware of come up, and it forces us to deal with them. And this is why most people avoid it.

I want to suggest that while this may be a painful process, it’s one that we mustn’t avoid. Henri Nouwen says, ‘Instead of running away from our loneliness and trying to forget or deny it, we have to protect it and turn it into a fruitful solitude.’ … Solitude is a process of honesty, where we discover ourselves for who we really are, and we realise that the world is actually a lot harder than we originally perceived. But it doesn’t just leave us there! God doesn’t leave us in that bitter place. He enables us to endure it, and he fills us with a great hope. In that time of discovering my loneliness and dissatisfaction, he filled me with a passion to know him deeper and personally, to learn to find my satisfaction in him and only him. I think that’s the real beauty of solitude: that God takes all that we place our hopes in – our relationships, our ambitions, our possessions, and he shows us that these things aren’t enough and they never will be. He then shows us that he is, and that he loves us, and that he is more than enough.

And once we realise this, once God reveals this to us and we know it deep in our soul, we can’t be shaken. This is where our foundation is found, in the secret place, in quiet time with our Father, who loves us! And with this as our base, he enables us to go back into the world and to bring him glory! With this as our base, by being attached to the vine, he enables us to love others for who they are. When we’re not attached to the vine, we demand things of people that they can’t fulfil. We get them to fill a void that they can’t fill! But when we learn to abide in God, when our source of joy is in solitude and silence with him, we are empowered and freed to live life to the fullest! This is why solitude is important, and why we must seek and desire it: it’s the source of our joy!

FINAL WORDS.

By withdrawing to pray, Jesus was able to keep himself aligned with the will of the Father, and because he spent that time in quiet keeping familiar with the Father’s voice, he was able to recognise it in the midst of all his busyness. We need to spend time getting to know the Father’s voice by abiding in him. Jeremiah 29:13: ‘You will seek me and find me when you seek me with ALL your heart.’ Psalms 47: 10 ‘BE STILL and KNOW THAT I AM GOD.’ We need to get this. We need to learn to stop… and breath… and just spend time with the Lord.

BREAK INTO QUIET TIME.

Slobbin

I've been having some nice chill time this last half hour, just lying on my recently made bed in my recently tidied room after a recently finished day of working and errand running. Ryan's been turned up to a good volume; we are becoming well acquainted, I with he. It's the first time I've kicked up my feet like this in far too long, and ho dang I am keen for summore o' dis! On the last essay now, then the filling out of summer dreams shall commence! For now, I reckon I'll let these feet remain kicked up a while longer.

Sacraments according to Thomas Aquinas

I think this writing by Thomas Aquinas gives a clear understanding of why we use sacraments in church:

‘Since it is connatural to a human person to acquire knowledge through the senses, and since it is most difficult to arise above sensible things, divine providence has appointed sensible things as a reminder to the human of things divine, so that human intention might the more readily be recalled to divine things, not excluding the one whose mind is not equal to the contemplation of divine things in themselves.... Again, sensible things are employed for human sanctification, in the shape of washing, anointings, meat and drink, and the uttering of sensible words, as signifying to the human that one receives intelligible gifts from an external source, and from God whose name is expressed by sensible words. Moreover a human performs certain sensible actions, not to arouse God, but to arouse oneself to things divine: such as prostrations, genuflexions, raising of the voice and singing. Such things are not done as though God needed them ... but we do them for our own sake, that by them our intention may be fixed on God, and our hearts inflamed.’

Summa contra Gentiles, III 119

Tele Nostalgia

Dan Ward, Jade and I watched the first few episodes of this into the early hours the other day. It was great fun. This theme song is so great. I'm pretty sure it was only this that kept me hooked for four episodes in a row. It brought back memories of when my group at school was addicted to the show, to the point that Logan, Rich and I watched it together because the girls were having their own exclusive screening. We even had home made scones that night! In my defence, I'm fairly sure that was the only episode I ever watched! Surely it's indie to watch it now.

Lana Del Ray, Video Games

Empty Space

I just read this:

‘Empty space tends to create fear. As long as our minds, hearts and hands are occupied we can avoid confronting the painful questions, to which we never give much attention and which we do not want to surface. ‘Being busy’ has become a status symbol, and most people keep encouraging each other to keep their body and mind in constant motion’ (Henri J. B. Nouwen, Reaching Out, 70).

That was written at the start of the 80s, prior to texting and social media. How much more true would this be today? Certainly I identify strongly with it. Clutter tends to dominate my world. I want to start creating empty space for myself, time just to enjoy solitude, reflecting, pondering, resting. 

I went for an hour long walk last night, fairly aimlessly to the beach. It was so great, in the dark, overcast and spitting a little, and hardly a soul on the road, just scuffing along the roads themselves, musing to myself and having a little God-time. I'm so glad of the time and space to do that! It wasn't really lonely or depressing at all, just peaceful, and a good reminder of God's perspective. Even though at times things are confusing and I have no idea what the point is, and difficult things like that can be on my mind, bogging me down, it's good to feel comfortable amidst it all. Having space brings these things to the surface, but as I hold them before God I get the peace and trust that God is good and he loves me. Verrrry encouraging!