Creating Space For God, Part 1

What is contemplation? Often when I am in one of those egocentric proud moods I feel I am almost a higher person because I love to contemplate and think, ignoring that it is quite the common phenomenon in life. Henry Zylstra in his writings in The Testament of Vision reminded me of what contemplation really means in our Christian lives - to contemplate, is to dwell in the knowledge of God, to be still and know that He is God.

Being still is so difficult in our world and in our lives, isn't it? Even going away on a church retreat I found it very challenging to be still. No matter how quiet and serene the environment is, there is always something to do, someone to talk to. It is almost as if you have to effortfully force yourself to retreat off alone into silence and darkness before you can achieve this stillness, for we fill our lives now with rumbles of noise and busyness. Henry Zylstra writes that we people are almost too lazy to engage in true contemplation because we are too bored to be still. "It embarrasses them, the confrontation in solitude of self, and God, and destiny. There is a sort of dead-alive...people about, who are scarcely conscious of living except in the exercise of some conventional occupation...They have dwarfed and narrowed their soul by a life of all work, until here they are at forty, with a listless attention, a mind vacant of all material for amusement, and not one thought to rub against another while waiting for the train."

This is our life in this day and age, isn't it? Boredom has become an earmark of life in our day. To be still is boring. To sit still, to be silent - is boring. To meditate on the Word of God is almost like pulling teeth. We must fill our space, our time, and our minds, or we find ourselves bored and sleepy. How many times have we fallen asleep praying? How often do we find ourselves completely at peace and truly enjoy sitting still and being in the presence of God? Rather we look for assignments, we seek out things to do, projects to complete - new services, new worship services, worship nights, conferences, movements, mission trips...we think upon ways we can impact the world. We try our hardest to serve our neighbours, our churches, our friends - or are we partially running around aimlessly serving ourselves? We fill our time slots until we have to leave early from one meeting to make it late to the next. We schedule our timeless days until there is no timelessness left, no room to even breathe, sometimes no time to even eat. We dream about building and saving lives. We study hard to become a somebody, we compete and work hard in the workforce so we don't become a nobody. We think to be a healthy Christian is to serve to our fullest capacity in our church, our seminaries, our communities. We struggle daily with how to deal with the social injustice, the poverished, the hungry, the war and the famine.

But friends - are we trying too hard to get ahead of ourselves? Is not our acts futile to begin with without the strength and power that comes through what God is already doing despite our existence? Why do we have this idea engrained in our heads that to serve God is to be constant doers, and why do we emphasize so little in our lives the importance of simply dwelling and enjoying the presence of God? Being still to spend time in intimacy with Him? Martha, in the story of Mary and Martha (Luke 10:38-41) was constantly working and doing and cooking because that was what she thought she was supposed to do to serve Jesus. Mary, on the other hand, knelt at the foot of Jesus to just ... be ... - neither was easier, both were difficult. Who are we, and where do we need to be more of the time?

"We are addicted to the active life, the exhaling life, the 'relevant' life that does things, show things, proves things, builds things...But it is not enough for leaders to be moral people, well trained, eager to help their fellow humans and able to respond creatively to the burning issues of their time. If there is any focus that the Christian leader needs, it is the discipline of dwelling in the presence of the One who keeps asking us, 'Do you love me?' Leadership must be rooted in permanent, intimate, relationship with God."
- Henry Nouwen