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Are you going to count, man?
Sorry I took your job.
I took your job, Mike.
Be faster.
We are all becoming someone.
In fact, one of the best questions that we can ask ourselves is, who am I becoming?
Because the things we do the most and what we give our attention to the most very much
shapes the kind of person we become.
And for those of us who follow Jesus, we refer to this as spiritual formation, the practice
of becoming more like Jesus.
And if we want to become more like him, then we need to consider doing the things that
Jesus himself did.
And so I want to talk to you guys about the practice of silence.
Now, I would define silence as the practice of being quiet in God's loving presence.
John of the cross, the great spanish priest, said that God's first language is silence.
Mother Teresa said herself that God is a friend of silence.
Jesus self modeled this for us.
In Luke, chapter five, we have this picture of Jesus, like many of us, going through a very
busy day, yet he withdrew to a deserted place.
Imagine that.
In the midst of a lot of things going on, he withdrew to a deserted place, which can be
better translated to a quiet place.
Luke does this intentionally for us to bring out the rhythm and practice Jesus gave himself
to, which is to withdraw and be quiet in God's loving presence.
Psalm 131.
David says there that he has calmed and quieted his own soul.
Now, I don't know about you, but it's hard for me to say that I have a quiet soul.
And the reason why that is, is because I think all of us live in a very loud and noisy
world.
Our calendars are loud.
Our days are loud.
They constantly remind us of the things we need to do, what we haven't done yet.
We often give ourselves to distractions that are very noisy, which keep us from receiving
the gift of being quiet.
And here's why I think it's a gift.
Because first, the practice of silence allows us to face the reality of who we actually are
and what's going on.
It said that the average person can't be in silence for longer than 13 seconds.
Imagine if we tested that out right now.
But one of the reasons why I think that is, is because we struggle to face what's actually
inside of us, what's inside of me.
But when you do practice being quiet long enough, those thoughts, those feelings, those
visions, those dreams you have they begin to surface, and it kind of freaks us out a little
bit.
But I would say that it's a gift.
Why?
Because you get to safely do it in the loving presence of God.
It's safe to allow those things to surface because if they don't, they will leak out of us.
They often leak out in our relationships.
And so unless you learn to face what's inside of you, it will leak out of you with the
people that you most love.
And so consider how this gift, this practice, allows you to face the reality.
Secondly, it allows us to face the reality of who God is and his love for us.
Paul in Ephesians three says that he is praying that we would know God's love in a way that
surpasses knowledge.
Now, how do you know something that goes beyond knowing it?
I think he's getting at experience.
And so the practice of being silent and being quiet in God's loving presence allows us to
experience his love.
And my hunch as a pastor is that many Christians today don't experience the love of God
simply because of the fact that they're just too distracted and their lives are just too
noisy.
We need silence.
And then lastly, ThIS practice allows us to face the illusion that we are in control of our
lives.
This PrActiCe, when you give yourself to it, it feels inactive.
You don't do a lot.
You just kind of sit there.
You're not sure if it even worked right.
And I think that's a gift because it's a reminder to you that you are in control of a lot
less things in life than you think you originally are.
And so this practice allows you to face the illusion that you're actually at the control
center, because you're not.
But you are in the loving presence of a God who is in control.
And so you can free yourself from being a controlling person, because controlling people
are simply not loving people.
And so we want to experience the love of God in a way that transforms us to love people.
Well, and here's how I think you can begin to practice this, because if your thought is,
wow, how do I get quiet?
Maybe you're like me.
When you try it, you immediately think of the next episode of the Mandalorian or what's on
Disney plus, or what you can't wait to get Home and binge Watch or your chores or your kids
or what your spouse needs from you.
Right?
We constantly try to get quiet, and then we're filled with a ton of things.
And listen, that's okay.
That means you're human.
And so allow those things to pass, allow those things to come up to surface, to offer them
to God.
And then below that, I think you begin to experience and hear God's voice and his love for
you in Christ.
And so imagine a quiet time in which you're not just trying to say a bunch of things in
prayer, but you're just being quiet in the morning, in the middle of your day, and in the
evening.
Consider injecting 60 seconds, two minutes, five minutes, maybe into the morning, the
midday, and the nighttime, so that you would allow both God's voice to be the first thing
you hear in the morning and the last thing you hear before you go to sleep.
Because, again, this practice allows you to be reminded of God's loving presence for you in
Christ.
And remember, this is a practice.
The people I learn the most from often say how they're still learning to be quiet, and
they've been doing it for years.
And so give yourself grace to this practice and consider how you might be transformed in
doing nothing and being quiet and saying nothing and just receiving from God who he is as
you get to be yourself, too.
So if you guys are up for it, I would love for us to actually practice this together.
Let's be quiet.
You.
It's.
Amen.
Cut.
That was kind of cool, man.
Good.
How you feel?
Yeah.
All.