Practising silence.

Experience teaches us that silence terrifies people the most. Bob Dylan

Meditation has got itself a bad rap in the Christian church yet meditation has a long history within the Christian tradition. I have no idea when we so lost our way that we thought we had to do all the talking ourselves when it comes to communing with God. We give lip service to the idea of the Holy Spirit within us & then deny the reality. Worse we refuse to listen when He gently nudges us; gag Him; grieve Him; silence Him. And then we grip about how to know the will of God & His direction for our lives. Meditation is one of the keys.

It is no surprise to me that so many of the great men of God were yokels; country bumpkins; farmers. Plodding in the slow wake of a plough pulled by oxen, leading sheep out to green pastures, crumbling the rich soil between dirt encrusted fingers to gauge whether it was time to plant yet, waiting for the harvest ~ these are activities that breed a meditative spirit born out of loneliness & a vast silence where the sounds of nature do not obliterate the voice of God in the way that t.v & radio & city traffic does.

When it comes to prayer we have been taught to talk. From the moment we stumble through Now I lay me down to sleep till we graduate to Our father who art in heaven, we are taught prayer is about us talking. Sometimes that is true. There is a time for laying our petitions before our father. There is a time for praise prayer. There is a time for lamentation...& there is a time to shut up & listen.

Thanks to yoga & a host of eastern meditation practices many Christians have become very leery of words like meditation. Silence. Waiting on the Lord. I have even heard people say it's not scriptural. Phluesee. Psalm 119 ~ Oh, how I love your law; I meditate on it day & night. Gen 24:63 ~ And Isaac went out to meditate in the field at the eventide: and he lifted up his eyes, and saw, and, behold, there were camels coming. Psalm 119 again, verse 148 ~"My eyes stay open through the watches of the night, that I may meditate on your promises." Jesus made it very clear that he had come to do His father's will ~ & the gospels tell of how he would go out to a lonely place well before dawn to commune with His father. Praise, petition, requests were all a part of his prayer life I'm sure if the Lord's prayer is anything to go by but so was silence ~ just resting in the presence of God, receiving His instructions, meditating on God's law & His promises ~ & Jesus knew His scriptures!

Meditation is scriptural & what we are to meditate on is scripture! The nature of God. The promises of God. The glory of God. Confession time. I am a contemplative at heart & by nature. I am drawn like a moth to a flame to the contemplative arts ~ & I am lousy at them! True. Being quiet. Centering, Silence. Stillness. These are almost impossible yet whenever I make the effort to practise the discipline of meditation I am immeasurably blessed.

The noise of the world is a real curse. It drowns out the still, small voice of God. When I sit down to meditate that is the very first obstacle ~ because everything immediately becomes louder: the whirr of the washing machine, the hum of the fridge, the radio playing next door, the cars chugging down the main road, the crows cawing in the trees, the motor boat's engine throbbing...anything & everything becomes a distraction. Worries descend like flies on the carcass of my mind & breed a zillion squirming maggots. I spend the first 15 or 20 minutes uselessly scurrying down bunny trails & it is hard to sit still & persevere through this. I am nagged by all the things I should be doing. Doing drowns out everything else.

I sit. I scurry after disappearing bunnies but you know what? If I last this long I begin to become still inside. Everything starts to settle, like mud settling at the bottom of a pool. I feel like I'm falling into the silence, tumbling into the very presence of God. There is, sometimes, an interim period of tumbled images floating past. I ignore these, concentrating on meeting the God of Abraham & Jacob & Issac. I'm sure this is different for everyone so I can only share my experience but as I settle into the very presence of God I am likely to experience two things: laughter & tears. The presence of the Holy Spirit manifests in those two ways for me. I know. Weird or what? The laughter is born out of sheer delight. As if God were saying, "You're here! Welcome." The tears are grief. Grief for my sin & unworthiness, grief for things the Lord lays on my heart to bring before him in prayer, grief for the world that has rejected him, grief for everything that separates me from God. I weep.

Towards the end, usually, God brings to mind solutions to problems that may have been bothering me, or gives me a clear directive or reassurance on something. Seriously, I've been given solutions to housecleaning problems! When all our household appliances carked it at once God told me very clearly He was Jehovah Jireh, my provider [& everything was provided for!]. And this is something I have learned experientialy too. God cannot lie. He does not contradict Himself so anything I think I've got from God will line up with scripture! Absolutely every time. This is why, in practising the art of meditation, it is important to know the word of God because so often it is that word He brings to mind to communicate with me. Scripture I've forgotten. Scripture I never even knew I knew. Scripture I've loved all my life. Scripture that doesn't make sense & verses I don't like. God is a master at making His wishes known very plainly indeed!

Why do I bother? Meditation isn't the easiest discipline to practise. Easier to garble a quick prayer & get on with the doing of things for God. Why? Joel nailed it centuries before I was born or thought of. This is why. This is what I desire. This is why I persist. Simply, I want more of God, far, far less of me. I want to become like Christ & this is one way I can let the Holy Spirit transform me from the inside out.

I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them.I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh; Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, Your old men shall dream dreams, Your young men shall see visions. And also on My menservants and on My maidservants I will pour out My Spirit in those days.