Space for Quiet

 Do you ever make space for quiet in your life?

I started wondering this as I sat outside a coffee shop (where I have been spending a lot of time the last few months).

When I arrived, there was a loud truck cleaning out the grease trap of a nearby restaurant. The noise of the truck was all you could hear for a while.

When the truck finished & drove away, I was struck by the quiet that descended & the things it had drowned out.

The chirping of the bird hopping across the sidewalk, looking for crumbs dropped by customers.

The laughter in the conversations around me.

The leaves of the trees rustling in the gentle breeze.

The little things you only notice when it gets quiet.

This made me start to wonder about our spiritual lives & hearing what God might be saying to us.

We say we want to hear God's voice. but we have so much noise going on in our lives that it becomes easy to miss His voice. There isn't a moment when we actually slow down enough, where we turn off the noise to hear.

Even if our noise is good things, it can interfere with hearing God's voice if we don't ever turn it off.

Do you make space for quiet in your life?

Learning to Really Rest

 Do you know how to rest?

Really rest?

I'm not talking about sleeping each night.

I'm not talking about your time off work or school.

Rest can, and often does, include those things, but in and of themselves they're incomplete rest. They're not the important things that refresh us and restore us.

I've been learning a lot about this recently. It's easy to not be at work, but still be thinking about work, planning things for work, checking emails and chat messages on my phone. Or to be planning the next evening for the Bible study I lead - what we're going to study, the details of each night. Or to be looking after family stuff that isn't always as urgent as it seems. Or to just be busy cleaning, laundry, errands.

None of those things are bad, wrong, unnecessary. They're part of life and important parts of life.

But, if they're all we ever do, we'll quickly find ourselves in trouble.

It may all look good on the outside. We get things done at work. We lead or serve at church well. Our family knows we'll be there whenever they need us or just ask us to do something for them. Our house is always very clean and organized.

But, we come home and collapse on the couch. Too tired to do anything but numb ourselves with binge watching a favourite show or scrolling social media before we crawl in bed to try to get some sleep. Morning comes and we do it all over again. Hoping for the day where we won't feel so exhausted and overwhelmed - the day when we'll do the things we used to do that brought us joy.

If we can actually get to the point where we admit it's not working, we can learn what real rest is. We can learn a different way to live. But, it means we have to be intentional about it.

This is where I found myself almost six months ago. I took my vacations from work, but all the notifications still showed up on my phone each day. I took the scheduled breaks between Bible studies I was leading at church, but I spent all that time putting together the perfect plan for each upcoming night we would meet - even though I knew most nights would likely not go exactly according to my detailed plan. I'd decide to take some time to do something I wanted to do, and a family member would phone or text with a request, and I'd drop everything to help them out immediately - even if it could have waited. My house always had to look perfect, even thought I was the only one who was going to see it.

And I thought I was resting regularly. Except coming home from work or whatever else I felt I needed to do and zoning out in front of the TV for a few hours wasn't really rest. But, it was all I could do with the way I was living.

I knew something had to change, but I had no idea how to make that happen on my own. I needed help to figure it out. I still need help figuring it out some days. I needed someone to help me see how I could make those changes.

And I sought that out. I found that help and began to make those changes. And I began to learn what real rest looks like.

It includes sleep. It includes time off work. It includes what I called rest before. But, it's so much more than that. It's meant boundaries around my time. It's meant intentionally scheduling time to do the things I enjoy and protecting it.

I can't tell you exactly what it should look like for you. We're all different. And what's restful to me, might not be to you.

But, I know for me, it meant setting quiet hours on my work apps on my phone so the notifications only appear when I'm supposed to be working, and turning them off completely when I'm on vacation. It means leaving my phone behind on purpose, or turning it off when I'm out for a walk or coffee with a friend (have you ever thought about how much our phones interrupt us when we're with other people?). It's meant learning to only drop everything for emergencies with family and making plans for another time when they phone with non-emergencies.

More importantly, it's means doing things I enjoy more often. Sitting in a coffee shop with a good book. Going for a walk with a friend. Playing a game with my niece (and usually losing to her). Reading that book that's been sitting unread for too long. Getting together with friends for games, food, conversation. Regularly phoning a friend just to talk about the last week for both of us. 

Really, it's been rediscovering what brings joy. What makes me smile. What energizes me.

That's been what learning to really rest has been about for me.

And as I watch people in my life and people around me, I wonder how many more of us need to learn how to really rest. How to make space in life for what really is important.

So, how about you? Do you know how to really rest?

When you look at your calendar, is it just filled with things you feel like you have to do? Or are there things on it that refresh you, restore you, leave you feeling energized?

How can you make sure you have these in your life consistently?

How can you learn to really rest?

Conversations We Don't Know We Needed to Have

Have you ever had a conversation that you didn't even realize was important for you at this time?

Have you ever had a conversation where you need to explain less about something because the other person has a better understanding of what you're talking about then some other people you have similar conversations with?

I recently had one of those conversations with a friend I hadn't seen in a while. It wasn't planned. We didn't say this was exactly what we would talk about when we got together. But, as we talked, our conversation naturally went in that direction for a while. And it was exactly what I needed, that I didn't know I needed. I needed to be able to talk about it with someone who gets it. I only realized it as I drive home that evening.

In our world of instant messages, blogs, and social media, I think we often miss out on these conversations. This topic likely wouldn't have come up if we hadn't been sitting in the same space seeing each other. It wasn't a conversation that could happen in a hurry.

I've written about the topic here a lot in the last few months. And while it's been helpful to write about it here, there was still something about being able to talk about it with someone who is living it too. And it was needed.

In the time since this conversation, I've been reflecting on our need to create space for these types of conversations. Conversations where we put down our phones. Where we sit in the same space as another person. Where we move beyond the more surface-y stuff, that's not bad but can't be where we always stay, and talk about the reality of what life is really like.

We need these conversations with people whose life experience and circumstance is similar to ours. And with people whose life experience and circumstance is different than ours.

How are you creating space for these types of conversations in your life?

Slowing Down to Listen

We live in a world of constant noise and activity. There's always something we can do or listen to that fills the time and the silence. We've actually become really bad at being quiet or being still.

But, I wonder what we're missing because of it? I wonder what the real cost is?

Obviously, we can see and experience the physical cost. The most common thing we talk about about is how busy we are. Often followed by how tired we are.

There's a relational and emotional cost. Relationships with people take time we say we don't have. And when we're constantly on the go, our emotions can easily overwhelm us.

But, I wonder if we really stop and think about the spiritual cost of all this busy-ness and noise? Or, have we become so used to it we no longer realize there's a spiritual cost?

Just as relationships with people take time and energy from us, so does our relationship with God. Just as we need to take time to sit quietly and listen to those we want to have relationship with, we need to do so with God.

But, in our busy-ness and the constant noise of our lives it can be easy to forget this. We try to substitute a quick devotional thought or listening to a preacher while we do something else for the time we actually need. But, in doing so, we miss so much. The spiritual cost of doing so is high.

It's a trap we can easily fall into. I know I do it more often than I want. And we have to intentional about slowing down enough to listen. We have to be intentional about turning off the noise do we can really hear what God is saying to us.

It's actually one of the reasons I look forward to the month of January at my church. As a church, we set aside 21 days for prayer and fasting. The specifics of what this time looks like may be different for all of us, but we get intentional together about slowing down and being quiet enough to hear God's still small voice speaking to us. Taking time to re-calibrate our lives as we being a new year.

I guess the challenge I have for you as I finish this is to reflect on whether you need to slow down and turn off the noise to listen again?

Have you gotten so caught up in the busy-ness and noise of our world that you're paying a spiritual price you don't even realize?

Too Busy?

Are we too busy? Do we need to create space for people in our schedules?

____________________

She looked at her watch again. The tenth time in the last few minutes.

"When will they stop talking about this? We have business we need to get to and I have barely enough time to the next place if we end on time."

With these thoughts circling in her mind, she began looking for a place to jump in and get the conversation onto the reason why they had all planned to gather at that time. She wasn't listening to the words being said - she had no idea they had a good reason for not getting right to business. She was just looking for a long enough pause to take control of this conversation.

Finally, she found her place.

"We really need to get down to business. We have some things we need to discuss and we only have a short time to do that."

Oblivious to the fact that one of the people in the room was dealing with a personal crisis and the others had been trying to help, she just pushed on and started in on the agenda. Not even an acknowledgement of the other person's situation because she didn't even notice.

Everyone reluctantly got on with the business and then left. She hurried off to her next meeting.

Later that day, she was sitting in her office wondering why she felt like she was on the outside of any further conversation with people in the office. It almost seemed as if they were avoiding her.

She finally took the time to reflect on her interactions that day.

The meeting this morning - the one where they'd all been having a conversation about something and she'd just been focused on getting through the agenda. Had she missed something there?

They'd all seemed shocked when she just pushed on to the agenda the second she found a break to jump in. Maybe that was because she's interrupted something else that was important too. They had needed to get onto business. But, maybe she could have handled that transition better?

Maybe if she'd been listening instead of just watching the clock she would have noticed. Maybe it would have been as simple as acknowledging whatever the other conversation was about and how important it seemed to be to others in the room before explaining that they really needed to get on with the agenda of the meeting.

She realized she had some work to do. Some colleagues to talk to, apologies to make. She'd missed something important.

She had another thought . . .

What if part of the problem was how tightly packed her schedule was, so that it didn't leave any room for life? What if her constant hurry was part of the problem? What if things needed to be changed so she had room in her schedule for people rather than just pushing through everything?

____________________

Sometimes we create schedules that are so jam-packed with things we don't have room for life to happen. We need everything to go exactly according to plan so that we can get it all done.

But, what if, in our hurry, we're missing out on what God has for us? What if we're missing the people God wants us to see? And the conversations God wants us to have?

Maybe we need to look at our calendars and allow for space for relationship.

Surrendering to Escape the Rush

Rushing from store to store looking for the perfect gift for everyone on your list.

Rushing form party to party.

Rushing to get all the decorating and baking done.

Rushing to get dinner on at the time everyone is coming for.

Why is it that Christmas seems to be a season of rushing to get things done and get to all the events?

It gets busy and then we get to to Christmas day tired and done with the season. We just want the say to be over so can finally relax.

We get caught up in the busy-ness. We get caught up in the commercialization of it. We get caught up in all the good things that come with the season - good things that can still distract us. And, in the process, we miss what it's really supposed to be all about.

But, what if we approached it differently? What would it look like if we truly gave the entire time leading up the Christmas day over to God? If we surrendered it?

What if, in the midst of all we had to do, we surrendered our schedule to God and allowed Him to invade our rushing? What if we decided to listen for the promptings of God that interrupt our schedules? What if we let God even interrupt the good things with His much better plan than ours?

I wonder if it just might mean we're not just wishing the season away and longing for a slower time again. I wonder if it just might mean we don't miss what's really important.

I wonder if it just might mean we more easily remember why we do all we do and what this time of year should really be all about.

Time for Rest

Alone

Silence

Stillness

Usually I try 

To avoid them

I don't want to know

The thoughts

Swirling in my head

People

Noise

Busy-ness

My companions

I don't hear

The voices in my head

I'm not listening

To the things that challenge me

Alone

Silence

Stillness

There's beauty

In these things

Necessity

Without them

I don't function well

People

Noise

Busy-ness

Eventually destroy

Leave me wanting

Looking for more

If I survive

On them alone

Is Your Busyness Robbing You?

Have I let busyness rob me of knowing God the way I might if I wasn't so busy?

I've been pondering this question for a few weeks. It's a challenging one to think about.

We live in a culture that prizes busyness. The answer to the question of how things are going is often that we're busy. And when we're not busy it can feel like we don't have the right answer to that question.

This thinking has infiltrated the church as well. There's a subtle pressure to add more volunteer time to the schedule if we can't continually tell people how busy we are. We look up to those who have filled their weekends and evenings with service.

But when we fill our schedules too full, often one of the first things that gets pushed out is our time with God. And this robs us of knowing God the way we could. Even when we're filling our time with serving at church, that busyness robs us of knowing God the way we could.

Don't get me wrong . . . I'm not saying there is anything inherently wrong with serving at church. In fact, I believe we should all be taking an active role in the church we belong to. But, when the time we spend serving our church makes us so busy we have no time for relationship with God, we have a problem.

How do we respond to this? How do we stop allowing busyness to rob us of knowing God?

We have to learn to create a life with space in it. Space, so we're not running from one thing to the next unsure if we'll be on time. Space, so we can linger with a friend in need. Space, so we can spend time with God and listen to His voice.

We have to learn to slow down - to stop living life in a hurry.

It doesn't come easy. It's a counter-cultural move.

I think we need to change what we celebrate and look up to. Instead of celebrating busyness and looking up to those who are really busy, we need to learn to celebrate being unable to talk about how busy we are.

We need to change the way we look at how we spend our time. We need to see our time with God as the most important thing. We need to move our time with God onto the non-negotiable list and allow other things to go when we don't have enough time to do it all.

Have you allowed busyness to rob you of knowing God the way you could if you weren't so busy?

Regretting the Hurry

"Someone asked me recently what was my biggest regret in life. I thought a moment, surveying the vast and cluttered landscape of my blunders and losses, the evil I have done and the evil that's been done againstme.
'Being in a hurry,' I said.
'Pardon?'
'Being in a hurry. Getting to the next thing without fully entering the thing in front of me. I cannot think of a single advantage I've ever gained from being in a hurry. But a thousand broken and missed things, tens of thousands, lie in the wake of all that rushing.'
Through all that haste, I thought I was marking up time. It turns out I was throwing it away."
(Mark Buchanan, The Rest of God, page 45)


Go back to the beginning and read the quoted passage above again. Slow down while you read it. Take time to reflect on what Mark Buchanan is saying here.


How would you answer the question about what your biggest regret was in life? What do you see as your biggest regret?

It usually doesn't take us long to come up with things we regret. Choices we made. People we chose to keep in our lives and people we chose to remove from our lives. Jobs we chose to take or not to take. Things we chose to do with our money or possessions and things we chose not to do with them.

When I really stop to think about it, despite all the choices I've made that are regrets, I have to say that I've come to agree with Buchanan on this one. My biggest regret is being in a hurry and it's the root of most of the decisions I regret making.

When we're living life in a hurry, our decisions suffer. We're so concerned about getting to the next thing that we run from one thing to the next with no time to think.

Are you living life in a hurry?

Do you see living life in a hurry as a regret? Why or why not?

I wonder what would happen if we became intentional about not living life in a hurry. What would happen if we slowed down enough to be really present in the moment and gave ourselves the room in our schedules to think?

I think that rather than feeling like we couldn't possibly get everything done, we would find that we have the time to do what we need to do without a problem.