Try Softer: Lonely Places | Part 4

Welcome to the Awakening Church podcast.

We pray this message encourages you and provides the hope and light of Jesus Christ.

Thanks for tuning in.

If we haven't met, my name's Ryan.

Yeah, welcome.

You know, many of you know this because I share this from time to time, but I've been married for 20 years, which is amazing.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

Have three kids, 18 through 13.

And my wife and I noticed something in our marriage, in our life, and we started to have this phrase, this saying.

Maybe you have had this as well.

It wasn't, it's not just a marriage thing.

Gosh, it's such a full season.

Anybody say that?

Man, it's just such a full season.

Like this season is just packed.

This season is intense.

And you know, we had our, you know, first two years into our marriage.

Wow, man, it's a full crazy season.

Life's full, and then all the different things.

And and we noticed this line, we just kept saying, man, the season, the season, but the season didn't ever seem to have an ending to it.

You ever notice that?

And then we noticed something else that we realize, I don't know that we're in a season, but maybe we're caught in a cycle.

Because here's what we would do, and maybe you can identify.

Um we would see all the opportunities, all the things, all the responsibilities, all the needs around us, and then we'd go hard after that, drive after that, feel pressure and demand, and like I've said over the series, man, we're terrific doers.

We'd get after it, you know, and knock things out.

We'd push hard power through, and we'd keep going and the demands, and then eventually, here's what would happen.

After you know, several weeks or several months, depending on the length of it, we would see the demands, push really hard, and then crash.

Some call it a vacation, but is it a vacation when you're sick through it?

Right?

And you've had this where you just you work so hard, by the time you get time off, your body shuts down, right?

And it says, like, I'm done.

Hello, you have not treated me well.

And so then we'd crash, and then we'd go do it again.

And then go do it again.

And it wasn't just a season.

We're caught in a cycle.

And I think, I think that's incredibly true, especially in the Silicon Valley, where the pressure and the demands and the hurry and the hustle and and what the job requires and is it's not just a season that has an ending, but it's a cycle that we're caught in, a never-ending cycle.

It feels like a cycle we can't get out of.

And so, how do you experience?

Like, how do you experience rest and refreshment in the ever-demanding, hard-driving, fast-paced, pressure-filled Silicon Valley?

And did that question like raise your anxiety level, right?

As you heard it, you're like internally like, stop it, stop it, no more, no more.

Like, that's the world we live in.

It's ever-demanding, non-stop.

We we live with these demands in our pockets where your direct report or boss or whoever can always get a hold of you.

Or your kids, good lord, they can always get a hold of you.

Ever demanding, hard driving, fast-paced.

It's the Silicon Valley hustle.

We go, we work hard, we're entrepreneurs, we're creative, we're gonna do it, and we're gonna stay late, and we're gonna get up early.

Pressure filled.

Because you gotta perform.

Because if you don't, somebody else will.

You'll get passed by if you don't.

Like, where is it possible that rest and refreshment could be found in the middle of the Silicon Valley?

We were in this series called Try Softer, and we've asked this question what if the secret to the life you've always wanted, the abundant flourishing life Jesus offered, isn't actually in trying harder, but trying softer.

Jesus had this incredible invitation we looked at week one.

It's the foundation of the whole series where he said, Come to me, like approach me, all who are weary and burdened, I'll give you rest.

Take my yoke or my teaching upon me.

Uh, learn from me, watch how I live life.

Uh, for I am gentle and humble of heart, and you'll find rest for your souls.

Think about this.

He says, My yoke is easy and my burden is light.

Like Jesus offers a way of life that is refreshing to the way we're going about life.

In fact, this is the way we've said it.

If you want to experience the life Jesus offers, you have to embrace the Jesus way of life.

If we want that refreshment, that rest, we actually have to embrace the way Jesus went about life.

I like how Dallas Willard said it.

A mentor of mine had said this line to me as Dallas had said it to him, and so he said it to me, and I wrote it down, and I was just like, man, I've been trying to keep this front and center of my mind.

He said, You must arrange your days so that you're experiencing deep contentment, joy, and confidence in your everyday life with God.

Ooh.

Arrange your days.

Hello, my days are already arranged for me, Ryan.

How do I arrange my days?

That sounds like a luxury, not a reality.

Is that possible?

Come on.

Arrange your days so you're experiencing deep contentment and joy.

I can't become a pastor.

Because pastors, all they do is work one day a week and they sit and have quiet times and drink coffee the rest of the week.

That's not true, by the way, but that's what my brother says to me all the time.

How do you experience rest and refreshment in the ever-demanding, pressure-filled Silicon Valley?

The sermon titled today is called Lonely Places.

Would you go ahead and say that to your neighbor?

Lonely places.

You weren't meaning them that they're lonely.

That's uh, you know.

You looked at them, that's a lonely place.

Um that's just that's mean.

That's not nice.

Don't do that.

But have you ever asked the question, how did Jesus juggle the demands and pressures of life?

You know what's interesting is we often look at Jesus' teachings, which is fantastic, and and we should.

But rarely do we look at the way Jesus lived.

Remember, in his invitation, he says, watch how I do life.

Like learn how I do it.

Like, look at the way I went about life.

How did Jesus juggle the demands and the pressures of life?

You know, like Ryan, he lived in ancient Palestine.

He didn't work for Google.

You're right.

And he had thousands upon thousands of people following him, flocking to him, hanging on every word, looking for a sign, hoping he'd do a miracle, waiting and watching, bringing the sick.

There was never an empty space for him, and he always had people in his face.

He definitely had the pressure-filled, demanding life.

And I wanted today just show you something that we see about the rhythms of Jesus' life.

Something he did that we often miss.

And when I show you, and you're gonna begin to see it throughout the gospels, you're gonna go, oh my gosh, this is the way or one of the primary ways Jesus went about life that he's inviting us into.

If you got your Bibles, would you open up to Luke?

Luke chapter 5.

Luke 5 · chapter mention

We're gonna pick it up in verse 15.

It says, Yet the news about him spread all the more so that crowds of people came to hear him and to be healed of their sickness.

So Jesus shows up on the scene, he's doing incredible miracles, and he's teaching, and people are astonished by his teaching because not teaching like they were in the day, you know, the Pharisees just kind of regurgitating stuff.

He taught with authority and power, engaging.

They're like, we want to hear more.

And that's what I'm hoping you say from me at some time.

That we want to hear, no.

That's fine, just fine.

No, well, another time, another time.

But but Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed.

His popularity is rising, and so he prioritizes time to get away and pray.

The demands on him are increasing, and so he demands time away to be alone with his heavenly father and pray.

The pressure is growing.

And so he gets away and prays.

It's a habit.

It's what he did.

And it's so counterintuitive to the way we've been trained to do life, especially if you're starting to have some success.

You get that job, you get that promotion, you begin to, you know, I'm gonna start on this venture, I'm gonna, whoo, you know what, I want to become a social influencer, and so I'm starting this, and you begin to get some traction.

If a, you know, a marketing firm or maybe uh a coach for an entrepreneur would hear the first line, news spread, crowds show up.

You know what they wouldn't tell Jesus?

You probably need to get away.

You probably need to stop and and get away and be.

It's so counterintuitive.

No, you need to strike while the iron's hot, right?

You you you need to you need to make sure you take uh full advantage of this moment, and Jesus sees all that's happening, and it can suck him in, and if it sucks him in, it'll suck him dry, and he steps aside.

Praise.

See it again.

Check out Mark uh verse one, uh chapter one, verse 35.

Now, the Gospel of Mark's pretty fun gospel to read.

If you haven't read it, you can just sit down and read it in one sitting.

I don't know how long it'll take you, but it's not very long.

So no shame if it takes you long, uh, but it's not very long.

Now, the Gospel of Mark's written to predominantly a Roman audience, and Mark's all about action.

In fact, one of the most repeated words in the Gospel of Mark is the word immediately.

You'll see it, immediately, Jesus, immediately, Jesus, immediately, Jesus.

It's just action-packed, boom, boom, boom, non-stop action.

And in the first chapter, what does Mark write in his action-packed Gospel of Jesus?

Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house, and went off to a solitary place, a lonely place, where he prayed.

Simon and his companions went to look for him, and when they found him, they explained, Everyone's looking for you.

Now, here's what's incredible.

Jesus got up before everyone, you know, was awake, so that no one noticed that he was gone.

But then he lingered long enough in the lonely place, not feeling the need to rush back.

He lingered long enough that everyone else was looking for him, like, where are you?

What are you doing?

And notice this.

Jesus replied, Let us go somewhere else to the nearby villages, so I can preach there also.

That is why I have come.

I think this is a word for us today.

Like God has a word for you today.

Think about this.

The pressures of life, the demands.

Let's just say any successes, popularity, whatever's going on.

They have the ability to distract us and pull us away from our calling and purpose in life.

It was Jesus in the lonely place.

It was Jesus when he got away to be with his heavenly father, that the calling of the crowds, the people were saying, Hey, everybody's looking for you.

You're supposed to be here.

Come back, come do a show.

We need, you know, uh an encore Jesus.

Everybody's cheering.

And it was when he got into the quiet place to hear from his heavenly father that he got perspective, understood his calling, and his purpose was not to go back and be the man in one town and listen to the crowd cheer, but to go to every town and preach the good news.

He says, That's why I came.

And see, we get sucked up into the pressure and the demands and what's going on.

We miss out and we get pulled away from our purpose and calling because we haven't visited the lonely place and stopped to be with our heavenly Father.

See, Jesus actually invites us, beckons us to carry life in a radically new way, in a different way than you currently are.

And the picture that I that I have, I remember getting this picture.

I for years I had a spiritual director, and it's just a time where you'd spend time with a person who's uh you know wise in the faith, and he would just ask questions for about 30 minutes.

It's kind of awkward because um you can't ask questions back.

Um and to help you just begin to unearth some of the stuff going on in your soul.

But I remember he gave me this picture because here's the way we like or are trying to carry life.

We try to carry life, um, well, balance.

Balance is how we want to carry life.

Like we want a balanced, who wants a you know, a balanced work life, right?

It's like, man, how do I get the work life balance?

I'm trying to, it's just not working.

I want to get, you know, this balance between uh, you know, my my my family time and having fun.

Like we just had kids and there's no fun anymore.

I'm sorry, kids, you're fun too.

Right?

We're in search of balance, and balance isn't necessarily a bad thing.

The problem is what we are hoping it will be, it will never will.

You'll never achieve balance in your life.

Balance is a myth.

You can work to get more things balanced out, but chances are you're gonna work more than anything else in your life.

When you're on vacation, your life is fundamentally out of balance.

It's out of balance on the fun side of things.

Balance is this picture that everything is even and equal.

And the picture is let's just say that I have, you know, because I'm very ripped and strong, I'm carrying two 25 pound weights.

Um, okay, so not very ripped or strong, but I can do that.

Balance would say if I have these two 25 pounds, that I'm getting, you know, 125 over here and 125 here and carry it.

You go, okay, and that's wise.

We want to, there's nothing wrong with trying to get some things balanced.

Jesus, here's what he's saying, and here's what we miss.

Instead of balance, rhythm.

There's a rhythm to life.

The rhythm is you know what, I'm gonna walk for a season, and then I'm gonna put down the weights, and then I'm gonna pick them back up and walk more because I understand that if I have a rhythm to walking, to putting down before I burn down or break down, I actually can go much farther than I ever could if I'm just trying to hold those weights and grid it through.

See, the picture for you is there's some weights that you've been carrying, some responsibilities that you have, some pressures and demands from work, and you're holding on to them and you're never putting them down, stepping aside to be in the lonely place and just begin to go, okay, I just want to hear from you.

I want you to meet with me.

You want to refill and refresh me.

And then I'm gonna come back, I'm gonna pick those back up and I'm gonna keep going.

See, it's far more about rhythm than it is about balance.

It's a new way to carry life.

Jesus had a habit of withdrawing to the lonely places to pray.

It was a habit, it was a rhythm, it was a practice.

He did it often.

In fact, if you begin to study his life, like I said, you'll see it everywhere.

Remember, when he uh he was baptized, the spirit descended on him, and before he started his earthly ministry, you know what he did?

He spent 40 days in the wilderness to fast and pray.

Friends, by the way, if you're starting a new job, if you're in between jobs, if you're trying to figure out what your future is, maybe transitioning from college into career, or maybe from high school into college, wherever you're at, man, it would be a good thing to say, I'm gonna set aside 40 days and I'm gonna really focus and pray.

I'm gonna maybe not fast food for 40 days because that's hard.

Uh, but I maybe social media or media in general, and replace that with focus on Jesus.

In fact, we're doing this for Lent, by the way.

And you notice in our Bible reading plan that we stopped, you know, before the month ended.

And some of you thought, wow, we're really bad counters.

But we actually will be starting up a daily devotional that you can pick up on your way out to help prepare our hearts 40 days for Lent.

So Jesus, before he started ministry, 40 days, then notice this before he chose his disciples, he stayed up all night and prayed.

Do you have a major decision?

Are you really not sure if that's the right job?

If you you're you're you're stepping in, you're like, hey, I'm gonna ask this person to be my mate in marriage.

Would you stay and pray?

Um when John the Baptist was beheaded, he uh Jesus is grieving, he pulls his disciples away, and he goes off to pray and to be with them.

Maybe you're in a season where you didn't realize, man, I actually need to take time and process his grief, and I actually need a few people.

Jesus took a few people with him to go pray.

Here's what's interesting about that moment is then uh the crowds followed him.

He shows up to this wilderness area and 5,000 people showed up there and he had compassion on them, and he taught them, and he even fed them.

That was very sweet of him.

But do you know what he also prioritized?

Is then after he finished there, he sent his disciples on up and then he went up onto the mountain and prayed.

Guys, this happens all throughout the scriptures.

He sends the disciples out, think about this, to go do ministry and their first like ministry thing, and then when they come back, he pulls them aside for rest and prayer.

I remember our counselor talking to Jenny and I after big ministry seasons.

She's like, Do you uh prioritize rest on the back end?

Do you calendar it in?

And we both looked at her with a blank stare.

Like, you can do that?

I mean, it made so much sense.

Like, hey, we just did this big push, but to schedule it in and put it into practice, Jesus not only did it himself, he modeled it, he brought his disciples along constantly.

He's bringing us into this rhythm, this way about life that our culture will not celebrate or prioritize and will pull you from it if you allow it to.

Because what it prioritize is you powering through to get whatever thing in front of you done.

And what if what if powering through isn't the most productive thing?

To do.

What if powering through actually keeps you from the most productive thing?

Now notice this Jesus worked very hard.

Because some of you are like going, you know what?

I'm going to just take the next three years off and be with Jesus.

Like Jesus worked.

And he worked really hard.

But instead of powering through, he prayed through.

And in praying through, he was far more productive.

Think about this.

He only had three years to instill into the disciples what was most important, bring about this teaching, and save the planet.

And how much of that time he spent withdrawing to lonely places.

If Jesus needed it, how much more do you think we need it?

And for some of you arguing, like, no, there's so many things I don't know.

There's so many people who who need me.

How could I do that?

Think about Jesus.

Did you know?

Jesus didn't heal every person.

Jesus didn't respond to every need.

Jesus didn't even visit every single town.

Oh, this is going to be a hard one.

Jesus disappointed people.

You know why you can't stop is because you don't want to disappoint someone.

And you take on everyone else's concerns as your own responsibility, and you need to discern is it yours or not?

And most of us put things on our place that are not ours to bear.

And we live over-paced, over-pressured life.

Jesus didn't live up to others' expectations.

I like how Dallas Willard says it.

He says, Hurry is the great enemy of the spiritual life.

You must ruthlessly eliminate hurry from your life.

Like we live such hurried, fast-paced lives, we actually don't know how we're doing.

We think things are normal, like binge watching Netflix, normal, right?

Withdrawing to lonely places, weird.

Right?

Scrolling, waking up, doom scrolling, Instagram, TikTok.

We stay constantly connected.

We don't even realize that we're not recharging our souls.

We're just numbing ourselves out.

The activities we dive into aren't even the things that are refreshing.

They just keep us going.

You know, um, when we were first married, uh, we had this silver Honda Civic.

It was awesome.

I loved it.

Stick shift, really fun to drive.

Um, I got in an accident.

That's a story for another day.

Um, and don't ask my wife because hers is more truthful than mine.

Um after the accident, the ding that alerted you that your lights were on no longer worked.

Now, for some of you, you don't know what I'm talking about.

Uh, in some cars, there's this little switch or kind of, you know, like the windshield wiper on this side, it looks like on this side, and you just turn it like this, and and then the lights come on.

I know some of you just turn your keys and the lights go on, or you just push the button, or you just say on.

However, it works now.

So you just do this, and the lights are on, you and your lights are on.

But the problem is, is when you turn off the car, the lights stay on.

And my problem was my lights stayed on, but the ding that would let me know after I turned the key off, opened the door, that the lights were still on no longer worked.

And I had a habit of every time I got in the car, I'd turn my lights on, whether it's day or night.

I cannot tell you how many times I went to work, came back out, giggig, car dead.

Went into a meeting at a restaurant, came out, giggig, car dead.

See, I think we live such hurried, fast-paced lives that we don't realize the ding that we need to recharge, that we are needing to stop, that hell hell, we have a drain on our battery that is depleting us, that has been drowned out, or is completely off, and so we're draining our battery and not even aware of it because we live this noisy filled life.

And even when we're off, we're not really off.

No wonder we're exhausted, no wonder you're tired, no wonder you're overwhelmed.

And Jesus offers us a new way to carry life.

He says, Come with me, pause to the lonely place.

Well, how do we do that?

Let's get practical.

How do we actually embrace this silence and solitude is traditionally how the church has talked about it down through the centuries.

First, let me talk about why we struggle with silence and solitude.

Two big reasons, I think.

One is the dissonance in our internal world.

Some of you don't want to pause, some of you don't want to listen to that ding like hello, your lights are still on.

And this is what I struggled with for years.

Is I knew that if I stopped, I'd have to deal with me.

And the dissonance and the chaos and the stuff inside of me that I like stopping was scary.

And the reality is, is if you keep going and keep going, you'll never ever deal with the stuff inside of you and it leaks out everywhere around you.

The dissonance inside of us.

And Jesus says, by the way, when you stop, you don't come to the God who's like, Man, I can't believe that's in you.

What did he say?

No, I'm gentle and humble of heart.

Come to me.

The dissonance in our internal world is one of the reasons we don't do this.

And then what we've been talking about, the demands of our external world, our jobs, your your school, friends, your kids, just have demands that are constantly pulling us.

I had just two big ideas on this, and is one, and these would be helpful to write down.

The work will never be done.

Just so you know.

The work will never be done.

And so you take the weights and you realize there's still more to do, but to recognize that to continue on, I need to put those down and I need to go and be with my Heavenly Father.

The work will never be done.

Second big idea.

Time is made, it's not found.

You don't find time, you make time.

I just can't find time, Ryan.

I just, I it's just such a chaos.

If it's a priority and if it's important, you make time for it.

We all do.

We all will.

You have to make time.

Why do we struggle?

Dissonance in our internal world, demands of our external world, how do we develop it?

Let me give you a perspective and a few practices.

First, solitude and silence, the lonely place with the Father, hearing from him, being with him.

It's actually productive, not a waste of time.

You're like, because some of you are arguing with me right now.

That is sounds like such a waste.

I have so much to do.

There's no way.

By the way, just friends, we get this.

Um you have a phone, yeah?

You charge it, yeah?

Some of you have cars, you plug it in, yeah?

Yeah, yeah, yeah?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Okay.

I don't think you've ever plugged in your phone and went, what a waste.

Gosh.

You go over to your friend's house, you see the phone charging, you're like, you're so dumb.

What a waste.

Like you've never done that.

Because you know, if you don't charge it in, what you have, oh, I got my light on.

What a waste.

That was a waste.

Because you know, if you don't plug it in, what happens?

All you have is an expensive paperweight.

But then somehow we miss the message when it comes to us.

Right?

First perspective, it's actually productive, not a waste.

Second, it's a skill to be developed.

We live in a world that has trained us to not stop, that has trained us to be busy, that has trained us to be distracted, that has trained us or trained me in my hand anytime the phone is near and I'm bored, boom, boom, boom.

It's a skill to be developed.

So don't get frustrated when you're not good at it, at it at the very beginning.

Don't be frustrated if it's going to just take you, you know, like silence and solitude.

Like maybe you start with five minutes.

I'm gonna start to develop this.

I remember at with our proteges uh last fall when we talked about when we pray in our prayer series in the fall and much of how to spend time with Jesus we covered.

So go back and listen to that series.

But one of the proteges was asking me, like, when I stop, man, my mind's just racing.

How do I quiet?

Well, it takes practice, it takes time.

And the more you do it, you'll get better at it and you'll begin to learn it.

But it's a skill to be developed.

Quieting your soul will be a process.

To perspective, it's actually productive, it's a skill.

So here's some practices.

You ready?

First one.

Prioritize it in your calendar.

I don't know if you keep a calendar on your phone or a paper calendar, wherever it is.

Put it on your calendar and keep it there.

I started doing it very early in the morning, not because I was a morning person, I was a night person in college, but when we had kids, I the only time I had where I had lonely places was very early before our kids were up.

Some of you are like, no, Ryan, I couldn't ever get up early.

Well, it's a mind over mattress thing.

That's all it is.

And it's a priority thing.

Jesus actually thought he needed it in the midst of the pressure and demand.

Put it on your calendar.

You're going at lunchtime, at nighttime.

Think about practicing the discipline of first and last.

What is the first things you allow into your mind?

What is the last things I allow into my mind?

And thinking through that.

Second one, find a quiet space to be with God.

Find a quiet space.

Do you remember when the electric oh you not everybody had that, never mind.

Um, do you remember when the storm hit?

How many of you had the electricity go out?

A few of you.

You know what was so my my house it went out for a uh a whole day.

You know what I was shocked?

How much noise we live with that we don't even realize.

How much noise, just electricity itself, like the low hum.

Find a quiet space.

You know, Jesus often withdrew to the wilderness.

He went to the mountains, he went to the garden.

He loved gardens.

That's why Judas knew to go to the garden of Gethsemane.

He knew Jesus was there.

Because that's where he had a habit of going.

Where are the places where you're in God's creation?

Find a quiet place.

Second, disengage and engage in.

And you'll notice I didn't put anything in there, just blanks, because we're all different.

So let me give you a few.

Disenge from technology, disengage from work, disengage from people, disengage from podcast.

It's so great to hear other people speak about God.

Wouldn't it be great just to be still and hear from God Himself?

Where we just disengage and we just have all this stuff and just go, God, I want to be with you.

And then engage in.

Engage in God's creation, engage in God's word.

That's why we have the Bible reading plan.

That's why we have this uh the daily devotional for lens.

And finally, new seasons often require new rhythms.

We often get into ruts in our life when we bring an old rhythm into a new season.

From college into career, your your rhythms change because the demands and pressure on your life change.

From you know, single into married, often your rhythms need to change.

When you start to have kids, new seasons often require new rhythms.

So you're like, what is that pausing?

What is that stopping?

What is that being still look like and placing the weights down?

Well, every new season, begin to go and look at your calendar, look at your time, and go, okay, what does it look like?

Do I need to adjust something based on the season that I'm in?

Otherwise, you'll be like where Jenny and I were, where you just find yourself caught in that cycle.

You know, as we talked a little bit about that discipline of first and the last, what you allow into your mind the first and the last in our When We Pray series.

And a gal in our church came up after one of the services about a month later and said, Ryan, I've been practicing it.

And you know, since college, um I've fallen asleep to Netflix every single night.

That's just our habit.

And so we set a time when the TV and the phones are off at night.

And she's and she was just like, it's amazing.

We're actually reading books, we're talking to each other.

We set it, you know, like a few days to do this, but we want to keep doing it.

Just carved out a space at the end of her day that created that lonely place.

You begin to become a tent of your soul and available to the spirit and the working of God.

New seasons, new place.

I want to give you just a little bit of time to pause.

I know we can't get off by ourselves, but I want to ask just a few questions and then simply let you wrestle and listen and hear from God.

So if you wouldn't mind, sit back, relax a little bit.

I'll ask these questions and then I'll give you space and then we'll close our with our little worship.

Let me ask you, are you in a season?

Or are you caught in a cycle?

Would you ask the question, what does God really want to develop in you this season?

Being attentive.

God, what are you really wanting to develop in me?

Grow in me, form in me, shape in me?

Is the pace of life pushing out your peace?

Is whatever you're pursuing worth the price of your peace?

Are the rhythms in your life numbing or nourishing?

And out of today.

Could you just wrestle?

What rhythms do you need to embrace or replace?

Just take a moment.

A pause with your Heavenly Father.

We hope you are blessed by this message.

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