Finding Strength In Silence | Jeff Vanderstelt

Hey, good evening. That's not very good. Come on.

It's not like it's morning or anything for some of you, you know, like it's,

it is for others. But good evening,

good morning for those who are watching. Um, but so glad to be with you. Um,

it is a joy to serve you. It is a joy to be present with you.

It's joy to get to know the leaders of the church.

It's a joy to see what God's doing in this area.

And so I just feel super honored to be with you and a joy to serve you tonight.

In fact, I wanna pray with you, if you would, and just, uh,

invite you to join me in prayer that God would speak to us as we look at his

word together. Father, thank you, uh, for this time.

Thank you for your word. Thank you for the way you speak.

Thank you for the way you lead. Uh, we do ask that you would guide us,

that you would lead us, that you would open up our eyes,

that you would help us to see clearly what you are saying to us. And especially,

Lord, help us to listen, uh, to your voice in Jesus' name.

Amen. Well, uh, Jesus came as most of us know,

to seek and save the lost and to establish his kingdom and to see it become on

earth as it is in heaven. That's his desire for us.

But that's not the only thing he did.

Jesus also came to show us the way to live.

He showed us the most abundant way to live the, the life that is most full,

most fulfilling, most human. I'll say it that way. Uh, in fact,

he calls it the, the abundant life. And, uh,

we know this life is found in relationship with God,

the Father through Jesus Christ, the Son by the spirit in our life.

And he even said things like this, I am the way, the truth and the life.

No one comes to the Father except through me. And I,

I wanna just stop and focus on the first part of that when he says,

I am the way.

And right now we're in this series where we're looking at the way of Jesus.

We're looking at the practices that lead us into the way of Jesus.

And the way that Jesus lived isn't just a great life. It is the very best life.

It is the way to live. In fact,

the reason why we have an account of his life and the gospels is not just so we

can know what he did, but he would also lead us in what he's doing.

And we could engage with him presently in a way that's truly living. Uh,

those of you who are fans of the Mandalorian might say, this is the way,

okay? And the way is Jesus. I wanna clarify that.

And one of the practices that we see as we look at Jesus' life and ministry

is this practice of silence and solitude where Jesus is regularly

getting away to be by himself in the place of solitude

and silence. Now,

what's interesting about this particular practice of silence and solitude is

that many who teach on the practices of Jesus and the way of Jesus would say

that silence and solitude is,

is really the container through which all the other practices find

their way or thrive. Uh, another way to say this is they,

they would say it's almost, uh,

impossible to truly engage in the other practices in the way that God wants you

to engage in them. If you don't also learn how to be silent,

if you don't learn how to be alone with God and with yourself.

And the reason why is because in silence and in solitude,

you are learning to be present with your real self.

See,

the the problem for many of us is that we are not present with our real self.

In fact,

some of us are so frenetically working all the time to almost avoid what's

actually going on inside of our ourself.

And so sadly then when we engage in prayer or we engage in Bible reading,

or we engage in any of the other spiritual practices,

it's almost as if we're keeping ourself far from God.

And the practice is the thing that's in between us and God,

instead of the practice is the way that we actually bring ourselves into the

presence of God with our very real self.

And that the practice of silence and solitude is a way of becoming acquainted

with what's really going on in you so that you can bring what's really going on

in you to God in an honest and real way.

So we're gonna look at that together and we're gonna start in Matthew four.

Uh, and if you want to turn your Bibles, you can, it'll be on the screen.

But this, the setup for this passage is at the end of Matthew three.

If you remember this particular time in Jesus' life, it's when his ministry,

public ministry is about to begin.

And he is getting baptized by John the Baptist.

And as he comes outta the waters of baptism,

the spirit of God descends on him. And he hears this voice from heaven.

This is my son, my beloved son, with whom I am well pleased.

And after that,

he's anointed and led by the spirit into a place that's called the wilderness or

the desert. And I wanna read that with you. Matthew four, one through four.

It says,

Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the

devil.

Now that word wilderness could also be translated lonely place or desolate place

or solitude. He's being led to a place where there is nobody.

He's all by himself.

So the spirit is leading him into solitude and he's being led there.

And he is gonna be tempted by the devil after 40 days and 40 nights

fasting, he was hungry. Now that seems to be an obvious statement. ,

if you don't eat for 40 days and 40 nights, I would hope you're hungry.

And it says the tempter came to him and he said to him,

if you are the son of God, command these stones to become stones of,

to become loaves of bread. But he answered, it is written,

man shall not live by bread alone,

but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.

Now there we're not gonna read the rest of the text, but if you keep reading,

there's two more times of temptation that the devil tries to tempt Jesus.

And in each case, Jesus responds with the word of God. Now,

what's really interesting is if you pay attention and you know that text, the,

the devil's actually using God's word to tempt Jesus, to disobey,

which is a, a warning sign to all of us.

You can actually know all of the Bible and not know God. In fact, uh,

there's a time in, in Jesus' life when religious leaders are around him.

And Jesus says to them,

you diligently search the scriptures thinking that by them you'll have eternal

life. And yet you fail to come to me.

And so one of my warnings as we enter into this,

into this teaching tonight is let's not do the spiritual disciplines or walk in

the practices of the way of Jesus as a way of just doing them.

But they were always meant to lead us to him,

to bring us into relationship with him.

And so Jesus shows us that he's being led by the Spirit to be tempted by

the devil. And he's fasting and praying. He's in silence and solitude.

And I don't know about you, but uh, I used to think that sly devil, he went,

he went and got Jesus at his weakest moment, right? He's hungry,

he's alone, isolated. I mean,

he picked the perfect time to tempt Jesus.

And then I read Dallas Willard's book, the Spirit of the Disciplines,

which I highly read. And I realized, no, that's actually not true.

Jesus was at his strongest time. It was through fasting,

it was through silence.

It was through the practice of silence and solitude that he was being prepared

for temptation. He was being prepared for the devil's attack.

He wasn't weak because he was doing those practices. He was strong. In fact,

as you think about the practices and the way of Jesus,

a lot of 'em are abstinence practices of abstinence like silence, solitude,

fasting, Sabbath, rest where we cease from our work.

And those practices of abstinence are meant to make you

stronger,

to be able to go without certain things and hunger more for God than the thing

you're giving up, whether that's the noise of the world or food that you eat.

But in every, any case,

they're meant to teach you a form of self-control that's more dependent on God

than the things of the world. And so Jesus was,

was at an all time high in terms of strength and resolve

and preparation. In fact,

I would even encourage you to, to start asking yourself,

are there challenging areas of my life where I keep having besetting sins or

temptations that I find myself regularly giving into?

And I wanna offer that silence and solitude for you may be one of the ways that

you start to learn how to be more present with yourself and with God,

so that when you face the temptation the next time, you're not doing it alone,

but you're doing it with his power and his presence. And don't miss this.

How does Jesus end up in a solitary place?

It says that he was led by the Spirit. I I used to ask the question,

how did Jesus overcome temptation in Matthew four?

Most people would say he quoted scripture. And I said, well,

that's half of the answer.

The other half is that he was dependent upon the spirit,

that he was led by the spirit, that he wasn't alone.

He actually had the spirit with him to enable him to overcome sin and,

and temptation to face the devil. He wasn't doing it by himself.

And so as you think about your own world and your own practice,

I wanna first of all start and say we don't enter into silence and solitude as

a solitary activity. We enter into it as the spirit leads us,

that we are actually going into it with the spirit's leading and in submission

to the Spirit. In fact,

I would encourage you if you engage in this practice to start by just saying,

I'm gonna submit to you Holy Spirit, as I enter into a place of silence,

as I walk into a place of solitude and I'm inviting you to lead me.

This is your time, this is your activity.

This is your time to work in me.

This is your time to reveal in me what's in me that maybe I don't know,

to show me what I don't see.

And it's also important to note that before Jesus is led into this time of

silence and solitude,

he hears these words and these are the words that he heard in his baptism.

This is my beloved son, or this is the loved son of mine,

the one that I'm so pleased with. He heard that from the Father.

And the reason why this is important is because Jesus,

before he does any ministry publicly begins with a clarity of his

identity and his acceptance before God the Father.

And as he goes into temptation, that's the the word that's ringing in his ears.

I am so loved by the Father, I'm so accepted by the Father.

I am so pleasing to the Father. And it's not because of anything I do,

it's not because of the ministry I'm about to engage in.

It's not because I'm going to heal people or preach well or cast out demons.

I am loved because I am a child of God. And that is simply enough.

And why is that important?

Because the very temptation that the devil's gonna engage him in are

questioning his very identity. If you're the son of God, then do this.

If you have power, do this. And so over and over again,

the temptation is about his identity.

And the way to deal with that identity problem is to go get busy and do work.

And the reason why I wanna bring this up and why it's so important for you and I

is because you and I need to have silence and solitude regularly in our life

because the, the majority of your, your life,

you are being told that you are what you do,

that your identity is in your activity that you're not hearing. I am loved,

I am accepted. God loves me for who I am.

God loves me because of what he's done in Christ to make me his own child.

I don't have to do a thing to earn it. I don't, I won't do a thing to lose it.

It's mine. I'm secure. And even if the temptation comes along,

whether I pass or fail the test, I'm still dearly loved as a child of God.

Amen. 'cause here's the challenge.

Most of us are tempted to look at our work,

our activity as the thing that justifies us,

as the thing that makes us significant,

as the thing that which we feel secure in.

And the reason why this is so important,

'cause if that's your tendency to feel better about yourself, when you do more,

then you'll bring that same problem into your spiritual practices. You'll say,

man, because I got up early and I prayed and I read my Bible, God loves me.

And then when you don't get up early and pray and read your Bible, you go,

I don't know if he loves me that much anymore.

And that seeps in to our practices. It seeps in to our spiritual formation,

uh, engagement. And so we have this in the back of our mind.

Isn't God so proud of me because I did these things?

Isn't he so in love with me?

Because I followed this pathway that I'm walking in the way of Jesus.

I wanna say to you, God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son,

that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have a eternal life.

And he did that while you were still sinners according to Paul in Romans five

eight, that he demonstrated his love for you in this.

Not that you were doing anything good, but while you were his enemy,

Christ died for you.

So we need to hear that over and over again in silence and solitude is that

place in which we enter into a time of inactivity where

we're not saying anything, we're not necessarily studying anything,

we're not doing anything actively so that we can learn that who we

are in Christ is enough.

Ruth Haley Barton says it this way. She says,

the longing for solitude is also the longing to find ourselves to be in touch

with is what is most real in us.

That which is most solid and enduring than what defines us externally.

This is our soul.

It's the place at the very center of our being that's known by God that's

grounded in God. And that is one with God.

And I just wanna say it again because in light of that,

we need to acknowledge that we're all prone to find our sense of identity and

being in what we do instead of who we are in Christ. We're all prone to it.

And sadly, this leads to greater levels of frenetic activity. Man, I, I meet,

I meet with a lot of leaders. I,

some of the work I do is around emotional health coaching.

And oftentimes when I'm sitting with a leader, especially maybe in a,

an executive in a business or uh,

someone who's leading maybe a ministry or a church,

I find that most of 'em are workaholics.

And the reason why is because they actually believe it is their activity

that justifies them. And that's a false gospel.

You are not saved by your works, but by grace alone,

by faith alone in Christ, alone in what he's done,

not what you've done.

And there's nothing that you do or don't do that can ever separate you from the

love of God that's in Christ Jesus.

And so silence and solitude is a way of saying, I'm gonna, I'm gonna revolt.

I'm gonna, I'm gonna be a renegade against the tendency to see my works,

my activity, my behaviors as the thing that justifies me before God.

I wanna say this real clearly. You are not at your best,

you're strongest or you're most prepared.

If you're not engaging in regular silence and solitude,

I would say you're probably at your weakest.

Now notice what happens next in Jesus' life when it's absolutely packed with the

opportunity to do good everywhere He goes, Luke five says this,

the news about Jesus spreads all the more crowds of people come to hear him.

They'd be healed of their sicknesses,

but Jesus would often withdraw to lonely places and pray.

So Jesus is incredibly busy. In fact,

there's another time in Mark where it says there's a line of people waiting

outside of Simon Peter's, um, mother-in-law's house waiting to be healed.

And at some point Jesus goes, I'm done. I need to go on to the next thing.

And you're thinking, man, you have so many opportunities to keep doing work.

You have so many opportunities to keep doing good. Why would you ever leave?

And he's like, I have to get away. I have to be alone.

I have to take care of my inner world.

So he enters into this opportunity to be silent and solitude, uh,

in in solitude with his father. And he did it often. And the thing about Jesus,

the busier he got, the more he needed it. But I would say to you,

if you're saying like, I don't have time, time to create lots of space,

to be quiet and be with nobody, I'm too busy, then I would say,

then you desperately need it more than you realize.

'cause the likelihood is the reason why you're so busy is because you're not

paying attention to what's going on inside of your world, your inner world.

So the busier he got, the fuller his schedule became,

the greater the demands of his time,

the more he got away to be silent in a space of

solitude. And I just wanna offer this. What if you started your day?

Maybe this is just a beginning step for some of you.

What if you started your day and you maybe you're commuting to work.

I don't know if you are. Maybe it's um, you, you're offing at home.

That's what I'm doing.

What if you just started your day and you turned off all the noise?

If you're commuting, don't listen to the radio. Just turn it all off.

And for that 10 minute, 20 minute, 30 minute, whatever that commute is,

you were just quiet and you just said something like this, holy Spirit,

lead me into the presence of God. Quiet my soul.

Meet with me in this place.

Remind me before I go to work who I am apart from you, who I am, um,

with you apart from what I do today. I'm just, say it again.

Slow down. Just kind of just do this with me in your own heart. Holy Spirit,

lead me into the presence of God.

Quiet my soul.

Meet with me in this place.

Remind me of who I am apart from the work I'm about to do today.

What if you started every day like that? Just breathe that in.

Be present with the spirit.

Ask the spirit to remind you that you are not what you do today.

And then of on your way home or maybe before you close the day,

you close your office door at work or you're driving on your commute home,

you turn off the noise. You don't listen to music,

you don't listen to a talk show, talk radio show, whatever it is,

and you just on your way home or on your way at the end of the day before you

engage in family or friends or whatever it may be, just again, holy Spirit,

lead me again into a place of quiet and rest, meet me in this place.

Remind me that I am not what I've done today.

Remind me that whether it was good or bad, I'm still loved by you.

Remind me in the silence that I am your child regardless of any work

I did today.

Can you imagine if you started your day with like that and ended your day like

that? Because here's my own story. This may not be true of you,

but I know it's true of me.

It is far too easy for me to start my day depending on myself.

It's amazing how I even can have a time in the word in the morning and prayer

and journaling. And as soon as I get into work mode,

it's almost like I moved on to Jeff depending on my skills,

my abilities, my strengths. And what the sad thing about that is,

if that's how I go through my day, then you know how I end my day.

If it was a good day, I exalt in Jeff way to go.

Good work. Look at what you did. And if it's a bad day, I'm devastated.

So it either leads to arrogance and pride or absolute depression and and

self-deprecation.

But what if I start my day like this in the way that we walk in silence and pray

and say, just bring me into your presence. Remind me it's not what I do.

And as I, and Lord, anything that was good or bad today does not define me.

I am yours. I am loved by you.

Nothing I've said nothing I've done changes that as I now go back into the next

part of my day. Like I'd encourage you to lay, lay down in your bed at night,

have some silence and solitude if you can say, Lord, this was your day.

I wanna be quiet with you now, by the way, some of us,

anybody in the room get woken up in the middle of the night with anxious

thoughts.

You find yourself in the middle of the night beginning to overthink what's gonna

about to happen the next day or what you're struggling with in your life.

And then, and then you become frenetic in your activity. And I mean,

that happens to me. And I,

I'll have an hour or even longer sometimes where I'm just like,

I can't sleep and the Lord's teaching me. Just be quiet, be

still know that I am God.

You are not. You don't have to be.

And notice next,

when Jesus' apostles are struggling with the same idea, mark six,

verse 30, it says, the apostles returned to Jesus and he,

they told Jesus all that they had done and taught. Now don't miss that.

They're bragging about all their activity. , they've been busy,

they've been doing the work. And we know in other other passages,

they boast in all that they accomplished. And Jesus goes, no, don't, don't,

don't boast about that .

Don't rejoice that you saw demons cast out or quote unquote Satan fall

rejoice that your names are written in the book of life. Rejoice in who you are,

how loved you are, whose you are.

They have another one of those moments they get back.

And I love that Mark makes sure we see this,

that they told Jesus all they had done and taught.

And I love that He doesn't go like, well done, let's go do more. He goes, no,

come away by yourselves to a desolate place. That's word,

that's the word for solitude.

Find solitary places to go and rest a while

says for many were coming.

And they were going and they had no leisure time even to eat.

And so they went away in the boat to a desolate place by themselves.

So I don't want you to miss this. It's like Jesus going like,

I'll take care of this. You go off on your own.

I can handle this. You can't get off on your own.

And I want you to know Jesus is saying that to some of you right now.

He's going, let me take the busyness. Let me take the frenetic thoughts.

Let me take what you're anxious about.

Let me take what you're overwhelmed with and just get away. Just rest

be alone.

Let me handle the things that are too big for you.

And so they went away in the boat to a desolate place by themselves.

And they saw many going, the many of them saw that the,

the apostles were going and they recognized them. And so they get this,

they start running on foot to the towns and got ahead of the,

the apostles where they were heading on a boat. Can you imagine this? Like,

can't we get a loan ever?

And then went on the shore and they saw the great crowd and they're like,

here they are again.

And Jesus had compassion on them because they were like sheep without a

shepherd. And he began to teach them many things.

If we keep reading the passage, he says, let me take care of them.

They have to feed them. So they do that miracle of feeding.

But then he sends his his apostles off again in a boat one more time. Like,

okay, try it again. And what I love about this is this feels like real life,

doesn't it? It's like you're trying to get alone. You're trying to get silence,

you're trying to get solitude. It's like the kids, you know, like they just,

they they need me and I, I need to be with them and or, you know,

work calls and the phone won't stop. And you know, emergency take takes place.

And I promise you,

if you start to work at this being a regular practice in your life, get ready.

'cause the enemy of your souls does not want this for you. And what I love, I,

I was reading about, you know, Susanna Wesley's biography,

even familiar with Suena, we, Wesley just a great woman in the faith,

married to a, a very famous evangelist.

And what she would do in her kitchen,

because she had a bunch of kids and when she wanted to get quiet and wanted to

be alone and experience silence and solitude and their kids are all running

around and she would just put her apron over her head in the middle of the

kitchen and she'd say, if mom's aprons over her head, don't bother her.

So she wanted it so badly. She used her apron to get solitary silence.

And what Jesus I think is doing is he's saying whatever it takes, get after it.

Years ago, I was not in a very good space. My wife knew it.

We were talking through it and I'd had an older gentleman say, Jeff,

do you have any practice of silence and solitude in your life? I said, no,

I've never done that. I mean, I have my, my time in the morning,

I call it quiet time, but it's anything but quiet, right?

'cause I'm studying and I'm writing and I'm, I'm, I'm doing things.

It's not very quiet when you're constantly doing stuff, it's not bad.

We wanna study our Bible. It's good to journal, it's good to pray.

But I didn't have a practice of doing nothing, just being quiet,

just being alone. And he is like, you know,

this is the thing that's sustained Jesus. He often did it.

I don't know how you think you're any better than him. He's like,

I wanna encourage you to start thinking about it.

So I told my wife and she said, yeah, what are you gonna do? I said,

how about when we go on our next vacation, we'll make time for it.

And so we went away on vacation and uh,

we were gonna take a break where I would take up half a day and just get off by

myself.

And we got home from vacation and we're bringing our luggage into the house.

And she said, wait a minute, you didn't do any solitude? I said, yeah,

it's all right. I'll do it next time. She goes, no,

you're not coming in the house. I said, really? She goes,

you said you were gonna take care of your soul and you didn't do it and you

don't get to come sleep here tonight until you go figure out how to do it.

I'm like, you're joking. She goes, I'm not kidding. Now, by the way,

I'm glad I have a very strong wife 'cause I needed someone to kind of kick my

butt . And she said, get a hotel. Whatever you gotta do,

you're not sleeping here tonight.

You're going to be obedient to what Jesus told you to do. So there's your bag.

It's already packed, you can go.

And so that night I went and stayed in a hotel

and I didn't even know how to do it, man. I was like, I wanted to look at email.

I wanted, I mean, I just,

I was so afraid of being all by myself because I didn't know what was gonna come

up. I didn't know what I was gonna discover in the silence, in the solitude.

And so I learned that I was more afraid of facing Jesus with the real Jeff.

And so I was busy doing stuff for Jesus and not being with Jesus with real

me. But in that moment I learned I've gotta make this a normal practice.

And so for a while I said, once a month I'm gonna take at least one day.

And this is what I discovered. I would go away in the morning.

The problem is I would start my day off with all this busyness at home.

And so the first couple hours I'm still thinking about the conversation we just

had. I'm thinking about the work that needs to get done.

I'm thinking about the bills that need to be paid.

And so half my day is spent still busy with all these thoughts.

And so then I learned like Susanna Wesley,

I'm gonna do whatever it takes to make sure I protect this time.

So I had a friend and everybody has a friend who has a really nice boat.

But I had a friend who had a very nice boat and you could sleep on it.

And I called them up and I said,

do you mind if I spend the night before I have a day of solitude on your boat

and wake up on your boat all alone with nobody to interrupt me and spend a whole

day on your boat? And they said, yep. I said,

you may not come down and talk to me. You all I want is to be alone.

And I did that once a month for over a year until I learned how to actually be

present with myself and with Jesus so I could get what he wanted to give me.

That was me doing whatever it takes to make this a

priority in my life. See,

because I needed to learn how to say no to sin and temptation better than I was

doing, I needed to learn how to be led by the spirit better than I was doing.

I needed to learn how to let God's word spoken over me that says I'm a dearly

loved child no matter what I do actually sink deep enough that I wouldn't look

to my ministry or my work as the thing that justifies me or makes me

significant.

I needed it regularly because the demands of my schedule were making it harder

to listen to God. You do too.

You need this. Some of you need this desperately.

And just so I clarify what it is and how we do it, as we come to an end,

I wanna make sure I clarify that silence and solitude is intentional.

Time of quiet to be alone. I know that seems obvious,

but to be alone with yourself and with God.

And I wanna say a word both about silence and solitude. First of all,

silence is pretty self-explanatory.

But you need to recognize that it's both external and internal.

So when we talk about external, you go to a silent place,

you turn off your phone, you don't check it at all,

you take out out your headphones, you're not listening to music,

you get rid of all external sources that can be a distraction.

You just go and be quiet. You don't necessarily need to talk. I,

I encourage people, don't try to read something.

'cause that's another way of potentially avoiding yourself.

What's going on inside? Just get rid of all external input.

Just be quiet rest. And I would just say start to breathe.

That's a good way to start just to through your nose,

out your mouth. By the way,

physicians will tell you that's a great way to reset everything inside of you

anyway, quiet. It just does something to your soul.

It it frees you from addiction to noise,

addiction to words, addiction to activity.

It's a way of saying,

I'm just gonna pause the external stimulation so that I

can learn how to be present with God and let him be the the loudest voice in my

life. By the way,

it's an expression of trust in God. It really is.

'cause Richard Foster says it this way, in the celebration of the discipline,

one reason we can,

we hardly can bear to remain silent is that it makes us feel so helpless.

We're so accustomed to relying on words to manage and control others.

And I would say even space, if we're silent,

who's gonna take control? God will,

God will take control.

But we're never gonna let him take control if we don't trust him.

So silence is really intimately related to trust. When we're silent,

we're practicing submission to God.

And in turn we're learning to trust that he's in control, that he can speak,

that we don't have to always fill the space.

In fact, I would say silence is the act of doing nothing and in doing nothing,

it's an expression of our faith that God is always at work. But

why is it so hard to do? Why do you always have to have noise on?

By the way, have you ever thought about that?

Why do you always have to have it in the background? You know, like you're,

you're folding your laundry and you gotta watch something on TV or listen to

some music or while you're driving it's gotta be always on.

Or while you're jogging, it's always on.

You're scrolling your phone when you're waiting in line or in traffic.

It's like, why can't we just shut it off?

Nonstop noise. It's almost like we're running from something.

And I would say, I think we are, I think we're running from ourselves

because when you turn off the external noise,

you actually start to notice there's an internal noise,

that there's a murmur going on, that we experience the fear, the anxiety,

the the hatred, the bitterness, the pain, the longing, the jealousy.

Which is why a lot of us avoid it because we don't wanna pay attention to what's

going on inside of us.

And so I just wanna offer a psalm for you for how we can begin to do this.

This is Psalm 1 31 says, oh Lord, my heart is not lifted up.

My eyes are not raised too high.

I do not occupy myself with things too great and too marvelous for me.

And that's another way of saying I don't be consumed with,

become consumed with the things I can't control.

But I've calmed and I've quieted my soul like a ween child with its mother,

like a ween child is my soul within me. And just, just hear that language.

Just say that's you calming you. That's you working on you.

That's you parenting you, that's you treating you like a little baby. And going,

how do I quiet myself down so that I can receive the tender nurturing care

from God? And he ends, oh Israel,

hope in the Lord from this time forth and forevermore.

Now I don't have a lot more time, I'd like to share a lot more with you,

but let me just give you my own experience of this.

Over the years I've learned that when I get times of silence and

solitude, my mind moves. I don't know about you,

but thoughts keep coming up. Ideas, concerns, fears, worries,

longing, sadness hurt. And I, I remember I was out in the wilderness,

take a hike one day on a day of solitude.

I was sitting up on a high rock over a river and I,

I intentionally didn't take out my Bible in my journal.

I kept it in my backpack 'cause I knew if I'm not careful, I'll,

I'll busy myself with reading and writing so that I won't pay attention to

what's going on inside of me.

And a leaf fell from a tree and it landed in the water and it found its way

floating down the river. And as I just followed the, the leaf,

I heard the spirit say to me, Jeff, I want you to learn how to be like the leaf.

That leaf is doing nothing but letting the river carry it.

And I want you to learn how to be that kind of child.

I want you to learn how to let me carry you.

And every time that you have a warrior concern come up during this time of

silence with me. I want you to just, you can follow it, watch it,

go down the river, but let it go. And so I learned how to let every worry,

every concern be something that I didn't try to avoid or ignore.

But I was aware of it and I said, it's yours Lord. That's yours,

that's yours, that's yours.

And through that process I started to realize I had a whole lot of emotions that

would come up. Fear of the things I couldn't control in my world.

And I've learned that whenever I had fear in my time of silence and solitude,

it was my way of becoming aware of something that was too big for me.

That God wanted me to turn over to him

when I would have deep sadness over some loss in my life.

I heard the words of Jesus.

Blessed there are those who mourn for they'll be comforted.

And I just heard him say,

it's okay to tell me the truth about your sadness and the silence and solitude

of your soul. And I'll comfort you.

When I was reminded of pain and hurt that I've gone through, I,

I heard by his wounds were healed. And then I heard him say,

I will attend to that pain but you gotta let me have it.

And it was in that place where the murmur of my heart started to show up with

the sadness and the hurt and even the loneliness.

And I realized I was far more lonely than I really realized because I was

keeping myself so busy that I wasn't aware of how badly I needed his

companionship.

And it was in that place of silence and solitude that I realized I need a

friend. I need a friend who will stick closer than a brother. And Jesus said,

I will be that for you.

If I hadn't entered into those seasons of silence and solitude,

I wouldn't have known how desperately my soul longed for him.

And I would've kept busying myself with frenetic activity and and all kinds of

work and avoiding my soul, being satisfied with good things from the Lord.

And I wanna be clear, solitude's not isolation.

You might be physically alone,

but you're learning to be with yourself and with God.

Richard Foster says this, loneliness is inner emptiness.

Solitude is inner fulfillment. It's where you learn to be with you.

And then as you learn to be with you, you learn how to truly be with God,

with your real self. What you're really going through,

what you're really struggling with. It's what the Psalms are all about, right?

The psalmist is just telling God the truth. I feel absolutely abandoned by you.

God, I am so hurt. Why is everybody turning against me?

You know what He loves to hear you show up with your real self.

So where do you begin? Just some next steps and I'll bring it to a close.

First of all, recognize that everyone's different.

You're all gonna engage in this differently. You don't have to do what I did,

but let me offer that you at least do something about it. In fact, second,

let me offer this. Try starting with a reasonable amount of time.

Maybe it's five to 15 minutes at the start of your day.

For some of you that's gonna seem like a long time. You're gonna go, wow,

that's really hard to be quiet that long , but you can do it.

And then see if it grows over time with my staff,

we started doing that together and we would create space in our day to do it.

And then eventually we got 'em up to a half day and eventually we said once a

quarter, you're all gonna take one day of solitude.

Most of 'em had never done it in their life. And once they started doing it,

it transformed their relationship with Jesus. Third,

I want you to hear this. It's not a performance. Remember your acceptance.

Remember your true identity, your real significance is not in what you do,

it's in Christ and what he's done.

And if there's anybody who knows how to be quiet, it's him.

And he's okay with you struggling with it.

So don't do this as a performance. Like look at how well I did.

I did a day . He's going, I don't care. I just love you.

It's not what I want. It's, I just want you, not your performance.

And then let me offer this as you start to step into this, and I,

I wanna encourage you,

so lemme try it this week as you do process with a few close friends,

what it was like, what came to the surface? What did you discover?

How was it difficult? What do you need help with? Like don't do this alone.

Do it alone. It's what called solitude. But then don't do it alone. Right?

Do it alone in silence and solitude and then meet with some people and say,

let me tell you what it was like for me to go through this

and just know it's gonna take time to develop. That's okay.

If you've never done this, give yourself a ton of grace. Be kind to yourself.

And by the way, we're gonna start right now.

So we're gonna take a minute and I'm gonna give you a time to be silent.

I just want you to pay attention to what comes up in your heart as you're

silent. Okay? So I'm actually gonna time it.

We'll do one minute so you can see how it feels to do one minute and then we'll

respond. So go ahead.

All right, Whatever came to the surface,

I encourage you to turn that into a prayer.

But why don't we just pray together right now and then trust God with this time,

with this space. Let's pray together.

Jesus, you were so good at silence and solitude that you could even be silent

on the cross.

You cried out for our forgiveness and you cried out from your loneliness.

But you could have, you could have stood against your accusers,

you could have cried, called down a, a legion of angels.

You could have saved yourself.

And yet you faithfully obeyed the Father all the way to the end for us.

Thank you. 'cause we were the ones that stood accused.

You could have cried out against us, but instead you cried out for us.

So Father, would you lead us in the way of Jesus spirit?

Would you help us to follow in his pathway?

Would you show us how to be silent and alone? Not alone by ourselves,

but alone with you? Be present.

But I pray for any man or woman or child right now that's here,

that they would know how much you care for their soul,

How much you want them to be present with their real self,

how much you want them to, to show up with what's really going on,

that you are not about only accepting the performance. Lord,

you are the the one who sees that that darkness is not

dark to you. It says light to you that we can't hide from your presence,

that who we really are, you already know and who we really are.

You already love. So Father,

I pray that we would all believe that you love the present version of us as much

as you love the future perfectly sanctified version of us. No less.

You love us absolutely perfectly. So, Lord,

would you move us to a place where we can be quiet with you, quiet with ourself,

and then bring our real self before you for healing, for comfort,

for renewal, for you.

We give you ourselves in Jesus' name. Amen.