Can You Stop For A Minute?

As this blog site states, we are exploring the importance of the soul and how to keep it healthy. Today, few think much about the soul, yet Jesus said that our soul is more important than anything else in our lives and should be protected at all cost.

Matthew 16:26 

And how do you benefit if you gain the whole world but lose your own soul in the process?

Is anything worth more than your soul? 

With this advise in mind, I think one of the missing disciplines in most Christian’s life is the practice of getting quiet with God. The life most of us live is one filled with lots of obligations and activities which includes lots of noise. But who regulates these important issues and are they all so necessary? Solomon wrote that there is a time and place for everything. So, does this include getting quiet before God so we can hear His voice?

Ecclesiastes 3:1 

There is a time for everything, a season for every activity under heaven.

So, if this is true, shouldn’t we make room for a time of quietness? Here is what most people do when ‘getting quiet’: They come home from a long day at work. Maybe they had to commute either a long way or a long time and they can’t wait to get home and “Chill Out” for the evening. They get dinner ready, then eat, then clean up and sit down for a little relaxation and watch a little TV before bed. Somehow they feel that this is “unwinding” so they can face another day. What if this activity and schedule is actually doing is actually part of their problem of being stressed out? Maybe all the noise and busyness is making us lose our temper faster or introducing worry and fear into our thoughts and emotions.

When Jesus walked the earth, he had limitations of an ordinary man. You might disagree, but according to the book of Philippians, he emptied himself of all his Godship and became a man able to die. The gospels tell us he got tired. He even fell asleep on a stormy boat ride the disciples were freaking out over the intensity of it. So taking into account that Jesus had to regulate his life just like we do, it’s amazing some of the priorities he decided on like making room for quietness. He had to choose what was most important on any given occasion. Look what Jesus did after a long ministry day of healing people and casting demons out.

Mark 1:35-36 

The next morning Jesus awoke long before daybreak and went out alone into the wilderness to pray. Later Simon and the others went out to find him. 

As a pastor, I know what it feels like after a long ministry day. Maybe not a day as intense as Jesus, but never-the-less a day that drained my soul. All I want to do was watch TV and take a nap. Jesus on the other hand seems to put a priority on getting alone to talk to his Father. Truthfully, I know I have missed a number of prayer times because I felt I was just to tired. Can you relate?

People are just like machinery. We both need down time for maintenance or we break down. Without maintenance we both will breakdown and end up costing lots of money to repair. For people this may include counseling or it maybe even mean being admitted to the hospital because we are so broken inside. Like the old saying goes, “burning the candle at both ends”,  causes major shut-downs in our health. I think we over-estimate just how much stress we can handle. Depression today is a huge problem that doctors can’t seem to help patients handle well.

King David wrote a beautiful Psalms about 4,000 years ago that even non-religious people like. It’s the Psalm about God being our shepherd. That He will make everything right and when we trust and rely on him we will have everything we need.

Psalms 23:1 

The LORD is my shepherd; I have everything I need.

This whole Psalm deals with God being the focus of what’s important in life and how God can take care of us no matter what the need may be. When David says that God takes care of him even when he walks through the valley of death, he makes an astounding declaration. He says he will not be overcome by fear because God’s rod and staff comfort him. What David was referring to is the reality of experiencing God’s care in the past which He provided him with the confidence for the future, even when that meant going through a terrible times of loss. David had discovered a key to strength that few understand or experience. Here is that key.

Psalms 46:10-11 

He says, “Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth. ”The LORD Almighty is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress.

He learned the secret of carving out time to get quiet enough to hear God’s voice and the importation that comes from spending undivided time with the All Mighty. The average Christian does not spend real quiet time with God. Most of the time the average believer isn’t familiar with getting quiet. At best, they have music playing in the back ground and then their mind wonders all over the place, so they read scripture or a Christian book. Why is this? Maybe it’s because we haven’t learned what made men and women in the past truly powerful in their walks with God. So often people go to big name preachers or teachers and hope for an “Anointing” to be passed on to them by being in their presence rather than paying the price of carving out real-time to get quiet with God.

Look what David discovered when he got quiet with God and heard his voice.

Psalms 51:10-12 

Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.

He realized he needed to be cleaned up and he needed God’s help to walk a steadfast life before God and man. David saw what only God could reveal. His true heart. You see when you get into God’s presence your heart gets to be revealed to you and you get transformed. The apostle John said that when we come into the light, our sins get purified. When we walk cleaner, we walk with true freedom and that means our souls are healthier.

1 John 1:7 

But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.

You may wonder why Jesus,  being the Son of God had to get quiet with the Father if he didn’t have to deal with sin? The noise of this life affected him just like it affects us and unless we hear clearly from the Father we get distracted. Jesus need to still the voices of everyone, including his family and his disciples who were telling him what to do. Jesus needed daily communion with the Father so that the Father’s was the main voice he followed.

Peace doesn’t come from vegging in front of the TV, and I like TV, but it is wrong if we haven’t spent time with God first. Find rest for your soul, my friend, that your soul can be balanced in your pursuit of God.

Questions:

1) Ask yourself, how often you make time to get alone with God? The solution is to start changing today.

2) Ask yourself why it’s so hard to break away when God is so good? Maybe there are idols that need to go.

Pastor Dale