finding sanctuary December 21, 2007

I’ve enjoyed reading this book, but come to the end of it thinking ‘now what?’ The book can be summarised as offering a grounding in silence, schooling in prayer, community to teach obedience and a life of humility. Since I started reading, I have developed some silence in my life. This is helping me to control my emotions, as well as listen to God day by day. Instead of letting my emotions rule me, I’m trying to bring them to God, accepting them and then move on. It has really helped me live day by day and to not get so worked up by things. When my life gets very busy, my emotions do get harder to control, and I notice how I need to make time for my silence. I may not always do that, but I have definitely learnt over the past month about the need for and benefits of slience.
I don’t feel I need to learn about prayer. That sounds boastful, but right now, I’m happy with my disciplines of journalling, meditating, reflecting etc. Yes, there is room for improvement, but the book is an introduction to these disciplines which I have already begun to learn. The one thing I will take is the encouragement, that it is difficult! And that the devil will seek to disrupt our times of slience and prayer.
Community to teach obedience. Today my eyes have been opened to see how much I can learn from working and living in the community of church. My natural tendency is to withdraw from the community, but I realise that I can’t withdraw and grow in God, I need to get stuck in more, to work at those difficult relationships, to obey God and live how I should. It is supposed to be hard. The temptation throughout reading this chapter was to think ahead to the new community I will be part of, and how I will do things differently. Or to think of creating such a community myself. But the truth is I have such an opportunity of learning open to me here. A time to learn not to grumble. A time to learn to love people who have hurt me. A time to give to and serve others. A time to learn obedience. I think obedience can also be learnt through my marriage relationship, and I need to open my eyes there too. Looking for opportunities to serve.
It is also connected to the last point of humility. The twelve steps to humility were interesting, but I think it is God who will have to lead me through them, not myself pushing myself forward. I long to grow and change, but this book has taught me that I can’t do it all myself. A lot of it comes from living and working with others, and applying what God is saying to these relationships. There are two elements of equal importance – my slient time with God each day where I hear from him, and my outworking and living of his ways in relationships with others throughout my day.
This book hasn’t taught me anything new, but has helped me realise the potential for obedience to God each day, and the fact that this will help me grow, not a rule of life or a strategy. Hopefully each day I will become more aware of God and myself as a sinner. Then I will grow.