A Day of Silence

Long before He laid down earth’s foundations, He had us in mind, had settled on us as the focus of His love, to be made whole and holy by His love.

Ephesians 1:4

I'd never done it before, but I have friends who swear by having a day of silence at least once a year... just as they also go one day without shoes, and do a media blackout day, and observe Earth Hour, and buy TOMS, and travel to faraway places, and other such stuff. To be honest, it's quite overwhelming to try and keep track of it all. I'm the kind of person who needs an alert on my phone set to go off to remind me about my favourite day of the year, because I would forget about it otherwise (which is September 19th because it's International Talk Like A Pirate Day, in case you were wondering). I'm also the person who forgets about her own birthday. And yes, those people do exist.

All that being said, I've had a LOT on my mind over the past few months while I've been at camp (Also, who's surprised that I'm back this year? No one? Thought so.), and I've struggled to find time to sit down in the quiet and just hash it all out. So I decided to give the Day of Silence a shot. I decided that "silence" to me meant not only an absence of talking and singing (which was proven to be the most difficult part), but also of media distractions (TVs, cell phones, radios, and music). A day of absolute silence is what I desired. A day of nothing distracting me from my God.

I learned a lot, thought a lot, prayed a lot, listened a lot, and read a lot. I walked around trying to find a place at the creek to sit down and zone out for a bit, but after seeing what looked like not-so-little/friendly animal prints, I decided to turn back (as I can't actually identify exact animals by their prints, I erred on the side of caution). 

The books I read were: The Furious Longing of God by Brennan Manning, and my Bible. I'd seen the first around for a while, but had never made it through the intro before yesterday. (For those wondering why, it's because I have an overactive imagination and an irrational fear of water. Now go read the book to put two and two together. And because it's a really good book.) After making it through the intro, Jesus pretty much slapped me in the face with every chapter I read. I also admire people who quote The Message in books and sermons they write, because I've met more than a few people who abhor the translation and think it shouldn't be categorized as a Bible at all. So there's that, too. 

The day prior, I had done my best to catch up on some sermons from my church in Lethbridge, and got through 4 before my brain started to hurt from all the information and my skin started to burn from being outside too long. I got through a Christmas message that I didn't realize was a Christmas message, and the first 3 messages on Ephesians in a series they're working through right now. It was good. When I was listening and I closed my eyes, I felt like I was at home again. I miss The Gate.

The surprise Christmas message was on Isaiah 53, with a smidge of Luke thrown in for good measure. Good stuff. 

Therefore I'll reward him extravagantly -- 

the best of everything, the highest honours --

Because he looked death in the face and didn't flinch,

because he embraced the company of the lowest.

He took on his own shoulders the sin of the many,

he took up the cause of all the black sheep.

Is. 53:12

I've long described myself as the black sheep in my family, because I went to, and finished, high school then post-secondary education. 

To Start All Over Again

And now, here's what I'm going to do:

I'm going to start all over again.

I'm taking her back out into the wilderness

where we had our first date, and I'll court her.

I'll give her bouquets of roses.

I'll turn Heartbreak Valley into Acres of Hope.

She'll respond like she did as a young girl,

those days when she was fresh out of Egypt.

Hosea 2:14-15

I also found a four-leaf clover in my travels this week. I smiled.

I am my beloved's, and his desire is for me.

Song of Solomon 7:10

I wish everyone could read The Furious Longing of God. It's really good, and it gave me a bunch to think about.

L'amour de Dieu est folie!

L'amour de Dieu est folie!

(The love of God is crazy!)

In the earliest manuscripts of Ephesians, the spot where it says Ephesus is actually blank, leaving us to surmise that the Ephesians weren't the only intended recipients, but that it was intended for the surrounding area as well, and Ephesus was just a central location for it to go so that everyone could read it. It could also be surmised that this book, above others, could be debated as being the most relevant to today's church, because of the fact that Paul writes to the church as a whole, not to one audience in particular. 

We've moved the definition of sainthood into a works-based title, but in the first verse of Ephesians, Paul calls everyone in the church a saint. Ephesians was written to all the saints of the church.

That you, being rooted and grounded in love, 

may be able to comprehend with all the saints 

what is the breadth and length and height and depth, 

and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge,

 that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God.

Ephesians 3:17-19

My family has always been good for keeping my ego in check. Whenever I've started thinking that I was loved or worth something in life, I would always hear someone close to me say things like: "You know, it's okay for your tummy roll to be smaller than your boobs," when I thought my new shirt was super cute and wanted others to share my joy, or "you're not worth the Dollar Store gifts I'd have gotten for you," this past Christmas when my mom and I drove 8 hours to go to the funeral of my cousin's husband (which happened to be 3 days before Christmas), or "he almost adopted you, but then he decided he loved your dance teacher more than us," when, years later, I found out why my mom's second marriage failed ...and other such things that have been said to me over the course of my life by the people who were supposed to have loved me most in the world. So when I heard people talk about the love of God for us, I always scoffed internally, because if God's love was compared to a father's love, well then it wasn't worth much, because all the fathers I've known in my life had always left after a few years. With that in mind, I left the church before God could leave me, and you know it's always easier to do the leaving than to be left yourself, right? (*Sarcasm hand*) 

For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear...

A few years later, I was curious to see if God still loved me, and happened to walk into a church that was months away from splitting in two, and walked right into the middle of: "Are you on our side, or theirs?"  I then talked with a man who gave me the gift of a single sentence: "Sometimes, when a relationship is destructive, it's okay to love that person or those people from an arm's length away. You can forgive them and pray for them, but it's okay if you don't interact with them all the time."  ...so I decided that I was on no one's side in that situation, and I left. A week later, I walked into a church that saved my life (but I didn't know it at that point). I was given the gift of observing the first healthy marriages I'd ever seen in my life. I was given the gift of a community that loved me enough to tell me the truth in love and never forsake me. I was given the gift of being able to redefine fatherly love in my brain, and in turn and in time, have been able to finally wrap my brain around Fatherly Love as it's intended. 

For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, 

but you received a spirit of adoption though which we cry, "Abba, Father!"

Romans 8:15

"Abba means in literal English: daddy, papa, my own dear father.

Is your own personal prayer life characterized by the simplicity, childlike candor, boundless trust, and easy familiarity of a little one crawling up in Daddy's lap? An assured knowing that the daddy doesn't care if the child falls asleep, starts playing with toys, or even starts chatting with little friends, because the daddy knows the child has essentially chosen to be with him for that moment? Is that the spirit of your interior prayer life?" (The Furious Longing of God, pg. 43-44)

"Abba, I belong to You.

It's a prayer of exactly seven syllables, the number that corresponds perfectly to the rhythm of our breathing. As you inhale -- Abba. As you exhale -- I belong to You." (pg. 46)

[The death of Jesus Christ on the cross is His greatest single act of unwavering trust in His Abba's love. He plunged into the darkness of death, not fully knowing what awaited Him, confident that somehow, some way, His Abba would vindicate him.] (pg.49)

Forgiveness does not always mean forgetting, but it means handing the matter over to God, and refusing to let the hurt and bitterness control and dominate our life. 

Dear Lord, You know that I'm finding it impossible to forget the past hurts done to me. Please give me the strength to trust in Your forgiveness.

Come now, my love. 

My lovely one, come.

For you, the winter has passed, 

the snows are over and gone,

the flowers appear in the land, 

the season of joyful songs has come.

The cooing of the turtledove is

heard in our land.

Come now, my love. 

My lovely one, come.

Let me see your face. And let me hear

your voice, for your voice is sweet

and your face is beautiful.

Come now, my love.

My lovely one, come.

Song of Solomon 2:10-14

Those doves below, the ones utterly cared for,

never endangered ones, cannot know tenderness.

-Rilke

Lord, help me to realize that, even when forgiveness seems impossible, nothing is impossible for You. Amen.

[The love of Christ embraces all without exception.] (pg. 60)

[No human word is even remotely adequate to convey the mysterious and furious longing of Jesus for you and me to live in His smile and hang on His words.] (pg. 65)

[The love of Christ embraces all without exception.]

[Once again, love by its nature seeks union. With the grace of recognition comes the awesome and alarming awareness that Jesus, the incarnation of the furious longing of God, wants more than a close relationship with you and me; He seeks nothing less than union.] (pg. 68)

I have given them the glory you gave to me, that they may be one as we are one. 

With me in them and you in me, may they be so perfected in unity 

that the world will recognize that it was you who sent me 

and that you have loved them as you have loved me.

John 17:22-23

By putting on the love of Christ and allowing ourselves to be permeated by His grace, we'll find that gradually the negative emotions of hurt, bitterness and anger start to disappear. This may take time but, by acknowledging our need, we'll have taken the important first step towards healing past hurts and moving forward in forgiveness.

Lord, however long it takes, please bring me to the point where I may say, along with Jesus: 'Father, forgive them.' Amen.

Only by trusting in God, and His perfect justice, can we learn to place the things that hurt us most in the hands of His Son, who prayed on the cross: 'Father forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing' Luke 23:34.

[Our strategies of self-deception persuade us that abiding restful union with Jesus is too costly, leaving no room for money,  ambition, success, fame, sex, power, control, and pride of place or the fatal trap of self-rejection, thus prohibiting mediocre, disaffected dingbats and dirtballs, like myself,  from intimacy with Jesus.] (pg. 72)

[The love of Christ embraces all without exception.]

[Are we responding to the love of Jesus living within us concretely and consistently in our love for one another?] (pg.73)

[The love of Christ embraces all without exception.]

Abide in Me, and I in you. 

As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, 

so neither can you unless you abide in Me.

John 15:4

"In human beings, love is a quality, a high-prized virtue; in God, love is His identity. ...if we continue to view ourselves as moral lepers and spiritual failures, if our lives are shadowed by low self-esteem, shame, remorse, unhealthy guilt, and self-hatred, we reject the teaching of Jesus and cling to our negative self-image." (pg. 77)

Do not take revenge... but leave room for God's wrath.

Romans 12:19

We are not intended to be doormats -- far from it. Instead, we are doorways, through which Christ's love and healing power can flow.

[The love of Christ embraces all without exception.]

"What is the sign, par excellence, of authentic discipleship? The night before Jesus died, He left no doubt in anybody's mind. "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you... By this all men will know" (John 13:34-35)." (pg.87)

And they'll know we are Christians by our love, by our love. 

Yes they'll know we are Christians by our love.

[The love of Christ embraces all without exception.]

Only when we acknowledge our own sinful state and recognize Jesus' awesome power to heal -- physically, mentally and spiritually -- can we move on to a new place of faith.

"...and behind their grumpiest poses, their most puzzling defense mechanisms, their coarseness  their arrogance, their dignified airs, their silence, and their sneers and curses, Jesus sees a little child  who wasn't loved enough -- a least of these who had ceased growing because someone had ceased believing in them." (pg. 88)

Perhaps it's time to look inward instead. What sort of person do you see? It's only when we're truly honest about ourselves and our fallen nature that we can realize the futility of judging others. In God's eyes we are all the same -- all sinful, all fallen. And yet, in spite of this, He loves each one of us and longs to welcome us home.

Therefore let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace,

 so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

Hebrews 4:16

[The love of Christ embraces all without exception.]

...apparently God had other plans for my Day of Silence than I intended. 

L'amour de Dieu est folie!

L'amour de Dieu est folie!

Go in love. Go with love. Go because of love.

[The love of Christ embraces all without exception.]

God is good. All the time. God is good.