Feeling safe with God in the quiet

In my previous post I wrote about my recent discovery of the gift of meditation as a tool for spiritual health and growth. After I wrote it a friend asked me how I worked through the inner battles about meditation, especially starting to listen to a Buddhist meditation expert like Deepak Chopra. I realized the story didn’t begin in 2020 during the early days of the pandemic. The story began in the early 1990s when I was a young associate pastor.

During my tenure at my first church as an associate pastor I was fortunate enough to have an elder board who encouraged the pastors to take a monthly day of prayer and fasting (on a paid “work day”). I loved those days. I’d often escape to the cathedral at a nearby monastery and sit in that beautiful setting or walk the trails on the grounds surrounding it. Sometimes I’d find a state park and wander on the trails. I’d turn my phone off, be silent, and try to quiet the noise inside my head so that I might hear from God. The discipline of going without food for the day reminded me to keep praying every time a hunger pang hit, and reminded me that God’s presence was more important and more sustaining than the food my body was craving.

I was always amazed at how slow one day would go by when I just tried to focus on being quiet, alone, and focused on God. Sometimes I’d feel God’s presence and oftentimes I would not. Sometimes I felt some sort of special inspiration or brainstorm for a problem I was facing, but more often I didn’t have any sort of supernatural experience.  But that was OK. I knew just taking the time to be available and quiet before God was a good thing. I would often feel like the idea I needed for whatever issue I was facing would come to me in the day or two following a day of prayer and fasting - not on the actual day itself.

Then I made the transition from that job to being the sole pastor of a small church. This meant I was in charge of everything from greeters to sermon prep to overseeing the worship music and children’s ministry. Negotiating leases for the spaces we rented and handling a large amount of requests for financial assistance from homeless people also filled the edges of my plate. There were so many ways my energy and time were pulled in this role. 

In the early years of my leadership at this church I continued my practice of taking a monthly day of prayer and fasting. But something started happening inside me. Slowly this day morphed from a day of rest and rejuvenation into a day for seeking the Lord’s help with big issues at the church. “God what should I preach about next year?” “God how will we ever afford our own building instead of renting?” “God how can I build up our children’s and youth ministry programs?” 

As the focus of these days subtly changed I found myself slowly beginning to dread them. Over the process of a few years, I found myself feeling burdened just thinking about a “day alone with God”. My inner critic (some might say it was the evil one) used these times to speak about all my failures and all the ways I should be doing more as a pastor. Scriptures would come into my mind about what a good shepherd does and what a bad shepherd does, and I would always feel shame as I thought way down deep inside I was really a bad shepherd - a hired hand - instead of the good shepherd who lays down his life for the sheep. “If only people really knew what goes on inside me, they would know I”m a fraud.” “If people knew how selfish I am with my time they’d fire me on the spot.” 

So I did what most people do with activities that create negativity in their lives. I quit doing it. With all the pressures I felt as a pastor, why did I need to feel WORSE about myself by taking a day alone with God? Better to just keep pressing forward doing good things for God. And so, being still and quiet before God simply got set aside, like a book that was once meaningful but now sits gathering dust on a shelf.

If I’m honest I think the only reason I re-discovered the joy of being still, silent, and quiet before God was because it was presented to me NOT as a way to be a better Christian, but as a way to know myself and get in touch with “the Divine”. The fact that it was Deepak Chopra and Oprah of all people made me more curious to give it a shot. If it had been Max Lucado and RIck Warren I probably would have just kept scrolling on my Facebook feed when I saw the ad. I would have been too suspicious of it awakening my inner spiritual critic.

Nothing in my 40+ years of “trying to be a better Christian” ever taught me to simply focus on my breathing. I had never spent time contemplating how good the Creator of the Universe was to supply what I need every few seconds of my entire existence. And after sensing my more extended times of prayer and fasting turn toxic on me, what I needed was a fresh start - in shorter periods of time.

I’ve come to discover that when I come to a time of meditative prayer it helps me if I do a few certain things before I start. First, I’ve found it helpful to play ambient music softly, directly into my ears through headphones or ear buds. It can’t have a melody or be a song I’m familiar with, just very slow instrumental music.  Second, it helps to be outside, even it’s cold. I have coats, hats, and blankets to take care of the temperature, but on extremely windy or rainy days I find a quiet spot in my home where I won’t be bothered by my dog or the sounds of my wife getting ready for the day. Third, I start a timer on my phone, so that I know I am to stay still and quiet until that timer goes off. I turn my phone over so I am not tempted to look at how much time is left. As a beginner I started with five minutes on the timer, and have worked up to fifteen. Maybe someday I’ll have the hunger to extend that to thirty or sixty minutes, but for now those fifteen are feeding my soul. 

I’m so grateful that I’ve rediscovered simply being alone with God, with no agenda. With no list of things I need to intercede about, or a set of Bible chapters to read, or a devotional book to push my mind in a certain direction. Those things are good and have their place in learning to be a disciple of Jesus. But it’s also a very good gift to sit in silence and meditate upon the simple gift of existence, of creation, of my place in the universe, and the amazing love of God.