As you all know, we are currently raising money for 13 Slovak college students to go to the Passion07 conference January 1-4 in Atlanta, Georgia. Here are the faces of the 13 students, so you can keep them in your mind as you pray for us:
This is our Sunday night crew…we get together every Sunday night after church (church is from 4:00-6:00pm) to eat a home-cooked meal, watch a North Point sermon video with Andy Stanley, and then to watch LOST (oh, the wonderful world of downloading!). It is really such a great time! We never miss a Sunday. We have a wonderful mix of culture, too. In the picture above, there are 4 Slovaks and 6 Americans. Last week, we had 3 Americans and 5 Slovaks, and one of our Slovaks fixed a wonderful GREEK meal! So fun!
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about silence. Mostly, I’ve been thinking about how absent it is from my life. I heard a fact the other day that really suprised me. Here it is: In 1968, it took 15 hours of recording time to record ONE HOUR of natural sounds uninterrupted by man-made sounds like airplanes, voices, cars, horns, etc. Today, it takes more than 2,000 hours of recording time to accomplish the same goal!
I have been thinking lately about how much noice fills my life. The noise of machinery; the noise of other people talking; and even the noise of my own thoughts. My mind is so full of these stimulants that if there is a moment of silence, it is so offensive to my ears that I immediately move to fill the void. Example? I can’t even sleep at night unless I fill the space with the sound of a fan. If the fan isn’t moving, I feel the silence threatening me. Or maybe a better way to describe it is that I feel like the silence is going to expose me. There is so much comfort in the covering of noise. You see, if I am sharing a room with someone (which I often have to do in this life with the number of camps and conferences that I attend), and there is no fan, well, that other person will be able to hear me breathe, turn over, cough, etc. The last time I shared a room with a friend (at the Josiah Venture fall conference), my friend Amy told me that I was making noises like I was in deep pain while I was sleeping. I laughed, but really, I felt somewhat exposed. Sleep is such a vulnerable position. And silence uncovers the vulnerability.
I wonder if it is the same for many of us and we don’t even know it? How often do we sit in silence? How much time is between a phone ringing or a television running or a radio playing? How long do we allow silence to surround us before we reach for some stimulant to cover our vulnerability? What are we afraid of? What will the silence expose?
You know, most of the knowledge we acquire is not really new information. It is usually just information that someone else is transferring to us through the medium of voice or the written word. And we take that information and we categorize it. “Ok, that knowledge goes into the fair category…that into the humility category…that into the pain category…that into the love category”….and so on and so on. We aren’t really discovering anything. We’re just shifting information around…from one person’s head to another person’s head…from one category to another.
So, how do we find out something new? How do we discover what is ultimately TRUE about something or someone? Doesn’t there have to be space for the discovery? Don’t we have to stand in the void of not knowing? Isn’t it necessary to wait in the discomfort of that threatening position…and don’t we have to stand like that long enough to receive something fresh and new? It certainly is a vulnerable place to be. And in that place…our neediness will be exposed. We will have to face the fact that we don’t have all of the answers…that we are uncertain about the future…that we don’t have everything under control…that we are desperately afraid of being alone.
And it strikes me that it is in that position of vulnerability and neediness that God most likes to speak. He doesn’t usually force His way into the business of our lives to tell us something new about Himself. But if we can stop…if we can shut out all the other stimulants…if we can bear the vulnerability of the exposing silence…if we can stand in our fear and neediness…THAT is the moment I think we can learn something new and fresh and real about God and about ourselves. It won’t be just categorizing second or third or 100 hand information. It will be the kind of thing that will inspire the creation of a whole NEW category!
Silence.
“But the Lord is in His holy temple; let all the earth be silent before Him.” Habakkuk 2:19-20
This past Sunday was the premiere of Déčko…our church’s new program for kids. Every other week, we will have a service geared for kids. It is our hope that this will serve our community in a way that touches felt needs in local families. On Sunday, we had 21 new families come to church. Even though it is not our goal to grow our church, we hope that the growth in attendance is feedback that this program really is meeting a genuine need in our community.
Malcom Smith, one of my favorite speakers, always talks about God’s pursuing love for us. I remember one day listening to him speak in Va Beach about Psalm 23:6, a verse that I had always known as saying: “surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life.” Malcom taught that the original language of that text is better translated as: “Surely your beauty and love CHASES after me all the days of my life.” He explained that the word for “follow” was literally translated “as a dog pursues its prey”. Wow. That’s pretty strong, isn’t it? That means that wherever I go, beauty and love will be there! It means that I can’t outrun it. It means that it will ALWAYS be chasing after me. I tried this literally the other day. I held a “treat” in my hand for my dog, Windsor. That was his “prey”. I then began to just walk casually around the room, and he followed me step for step. I then began to run, and of course, he ran, too! I tried to hide from him by going into another room, but when I came out, there he was, patiently waiting by the door! Everywhere I went, he was there…completely focused on that prey!Last week, I was sitting on the steps that go into the garden behind my apartment building. It was a pretty day, and I was just soaking up the sunshine…with Windsor and some neighbor cats. Suddenly, i realized that a white TESCO bag was hanging by my head! (Tesco is our neighborhood grocery store) After I recovered from the shock of a bag appearing out of nowhere, I realized that my neighbor, a sweet older lady named Margita, had filled the bag with apples she had picked from our apple tree and was lowering it down to me from her apartment above me on a rope!!! I wish you could fully picture this in your mind! I was immediately aware that this was a special moment! How many times have we experienced someone trying so hard to bless us with a gift?? Margita and I are funny when we try to talk. She doesn’t speak English at all, and I struggle with my Slovak, so we have pretty funny moments trying to talk to each other. But she spoke loud and clear with this effort to give me a gift!
Yesterday, I was again sitting outside, but this time, I was on my balcony that looks out over our garden behind our apartment building. I was studying Slovak ( I thought I was alone, so I was reading out loud and reciting words I’m trying to learn). And suddendly, again, a Tesco bag appeared!!! But this time, it wasn’t being lowered on a rope. I looked over the balcony edge, and there was Margita….smiling and lifting a long tree branch with the tesco bag hung on the end of it to me! This time, it was filled with grapes and more apples! Again, I was overwhelmed by the effort to bless me with something good!
Slovaks are culturally very giving people. They are servants. I have been overwhelmed by their extra efforts to bless others. I want to learn from them. Today, I’m thanking God for the reminder that this is the way HE loves me. His beauty and love DOES pursue me like a dog pursues its prey. He CHASES AFTER me with His mercy and His goodness.
“Your beauty and love chases after me all the days of my life.” Psalm 23:6, The Message.
