Challenge 8: Learn How to Take Time to Rest before God
Admit the Truth: You Are an Addict
Men, raise a hand, state your name, and admit the fact: you are addicted to getting stuff done. Or, if efficiency is not your substance of abuse, entertainment is. There are only two types of men in the modern world: those who live to tick items off their to-do list and those who amuse themselves to death. The other species of men who actually know how to sit still in the presence of God are so rare they are not worth mentioning.
Now let me be absolutely clear about what I am not trying to do with this challenge. In no way am I going to make an argument for or against the need for Christians to keep the Sabbath. That theological quagmire will be avoided with the diligence of a soldier side-stepping a mine. Likewise, I am not making an argument that productivity and fun are evil. On the contrary, productivity is a skill worthy of being developed and fun is a gift from God. My agenda is otherwise. I am starting from the fact that we are like pain-killer addicts who accidentally stumble into a life-threatening problem. Unintentionally, we have allowed ourselves to become abusers of work and play. The tragic consequence of this is that we no longer know how to worship. Worship - the ability to abide in the presence of God - this is what we want to recover and strengthen.
The Decisive Actions that Make Rest Possible
There are four actions that enable unhurried time with God, namely, stopping, resting, contemplating, and enjoying.
First, to enjoy God we must stop. We must turn off the TV, shut down our phones, and desist from our normal routines.
Second, we must rest. Men, be intentional about this. Pretend that Typhoid Mary is waiting for you at the gym, that Charles Manson is stalking you at the office, that an assassin is guarding your new Honda mower. Multi-tasking is a myth, and God is tired of you squeezing your quiet time into 10 minutes so that you can go out and spend 2 hours clipping the hedges.
Third, contemplate. How many times in the Bible does God tell us to focus our attention on truth - not like a hummingbird that cannot rest on a branch - but like a mother hen that sits and broods. Do something radical: pick up a Bible, or an old hymn, and fix your attention long enough to hear the voice of God.
Finally, delight. The great evil of not being able to rest is the reason why men never taste and see the goodness of God. Most of us are missing out. The thrill of completing a project or watching an Avenger movie compared to communion with God is like a grilled SPAM burger compared to a fillet mignon. Learn the discipline of solitude and prayer, not to make yourself miserable, but to swim in the depths of joy.
What Should We Rest from?
Here is a short list to get your started: work, physical exhaustion, hurriedness, multitasking, competitiveness, worry, decision making, catching up on errands, task lists, honey-do lists, excessive talking, politics, sports, and technology.
“All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone (Pascal).”
Week 29: Take Sunday Morning or Afternoon to Rest before God
Week 30: Repeat the Previous Assignment
Like most Christian parents I worry about my kids hating worship. After a week filled with entertainment and activity, stepping into church or having a family devotional feels a bit like switching from a Mission Impossible movie to a PBS special.
In view of this, to help them, I try to make sure that they understand what worship is and how to enter into worship with appropriate expectations. More specifically I tell them that, in life, all of us need three boxes: one for work, one for fun, and one for worship. (Admittedly, this is simplistic, but keep in mind I have a four-year-old.) I then emphasize the importance of putting the right thing in the right box and making sure that each box is adequately filled.
My point is this: if we think that work is supposed to be fun, we will always be frustrated by the reality of washing dishes or cutting grass. Work is called work for a reason: It's not play. Likewise, if we think that the whole of life is supposed to be fun, we will be annoyed by worship and mistake spiritual routine for drudgery. Part of being a mature adult is realizing that there is a time for sweat, a time for ESPN, and a time to desist and pause in the presence of God.
Now why am I telling you this? A lot of guys have two refrigerator-sized boxes for work and fun and then a ring-sized third box for worship. This imbalance is what we are trying to adjust. Most of us are like children playing X-Box in the living room. We need to unplug so that we can spend time with our heavenly Dad. How do we do this? Step one is rest.
I realize that a lot of you feel just as awkward turning off the radio and TV as you do standing naked holding a hose in the front yard. We hide behind noise and activity like we do behind a pair of briefs. Yet, no man should rest content in a state of weakness. Instead, like good participants of AA, we must admit the problem and begin the long and difficult journey of recovery.
Additional Coaching
Week 31: Identify a Place to Spend Quiet Time with God
Have you ever noticed how Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob wander about the Promise Land either building altars or returning to places where their fathers had met with God? There is something undeniably human about our need for place. We all know what it is like to experience a location as 'home'. After a 10 hour journey, we arrive to the front door of our parents', or grandparents', house, and the tension of hardened emotion relaxes. Our soul feels centered, life ordered.
There is a spiritual application for this facet of our being. Our need for place can assist our devotion. If we dedicate a corner of our yard, or have a special chair in our bedroom, or repeatedly visit a hollow in the woods, we will discover a contentment of mind that will help us enter a spirit of reflection and prayer.
Now we need to admit that our culture has made it nearly impossible to maintain any spiritual sense of place. Most of us don't have easy access to unclaimed wilderness, our public parks are too public, and our homes are too filled with noise, distraction, and reminders of work to aid communion with God. Therefore, more than any other culture in the history of the world, we have to work hard to rediscover a sense of place. How can we do this?
First, seek out a location that is buffered from noise and distraction. If you have kids, this means avoiding the living room. It also means turning off phones and TVs. Freedom from distraction and privacy are equally vital. Any noisy alert will disrupt your thought. Any sense of being observed will reduce worship to self-consciousness, even embarrassment. For good reason, Jesus told us to go and find a closet (Matt. 6:6). All intimacy is intimate.
Second, consistency is key. You don't need to build a secret garden to experience solitude. A fold-out camping chair in the corner of the yard will do. Repetition is what counts. If you keep showing up at the same place you will notice that mental associations are formed. The azalea bush in the side yard will remind you of worship in the same way that a desk will prompt you to check email.
Third, don't be afraid to read and talk out loud. Reading silent is a new skill that humans have only been able to perform for the last three hundred years. Through the rest of our history most communication was verbal and involved actual words being spoken. Talk to God. Treat Him as if He was real, present, and alive because He is. Feel the wind as if it were His embrace. Let the light remind you of His presence. Treat the world as if it were a tabernacle He has built to draw you to Himself. And most of all, remember that your body is His temple. He is more deeply a part of you than is your mind, soul, or self. This is why all great spiritual writers have described the journey inward as in fact a journey upward.
The assignment this week is to continue to rest before God and to do so by establishing a specific place for communion with God. Experiment. If one place doesn't work, go elsewhere. Many a godly man has sought out a hotel lobby or college campus for private devotion. Go out and discover what works for you.
Week 32: Sacrifice One Good Thing This Week for the Best Thing
We've all heard that the great is the enemy of the good. Sometimes the desire for perfection in one task can keep us from accomplishing a myriad of other important things. However, it's equally true that the good is the enemy of the best, that a scattered desire to do too much can frustrate our pursuit of the highest good. Thus we can prioritize 100 minor projects at the expense of knowing God. This problem needs to be addresssed.
Here is your challenge for week 32: pick out one 'good thing' this week and give it up in order to have time to rest and savor the presence of God. It can be anything: watching a football game, a Wednesday morning workout, cleaning the garage, or going to dinner with friends. All of these are good things, but they are not the best thing. Make time for the One who made you.