Soul Space

Noise hurts.

Even more so since I embarked on my quest to complete my dissertation for my MA in mission. The title being The missiological nature of silence.

I've studied, researched, had conversations about silence! Its a bit ironic really that in fact, it's really noisy doing all that.

One thing I have realised though, is that my life gets way too noisy and I am beginning more and more to find that the balance between fighting for the disadvantaged and the needy and taking care of what's going on inside my own life is so essential to my journey through this life.

And lately?

The need for silence and space has heightened.

I love writing, I love speaking, I love ministering to people, I love the work I've been called to do. But it's amazing how cluttered my life gets in the midst of all that.

Anyone out there relate to that?

I have worked hard to develop a lifestyle of prayer. And I have built prayer spaces into my every day life, and I love praying, and I definitely realise that without it I won't survive the Christian journey.

But I've noticed even in those precious times that my prayer times are getting cluttered, kind of overloaded with prayer!

That sounds mad I know, but I'm cluttering my prayer times with "God bless this!" "God I need this!" "God will you do such and such!" "God will you change the world please!"

Lots of shooting from the hip when it comes to prayer.

lots of talk.

And I totally understand how life-giving that is to me and to the world.

But I need, no, I'm craving for, silence.

Just to discover more of what lays in the silence, more of what God has in store in the quiet, in the solitude.

I need space.

I need solitude.

I need more time to take a soul check.

It's amazing how frightened we get of silence. Wherever we go we have piped music even in toilets in some places! People crave noise. The earphone revolution is still gathering pace, we have to do do do. We go on so called retreats, and find that really its a conference with teaching and activity that you could often well just do without. We fill our lives with noise.

It's hard to take responsibility for what's happening in our soul.

On holiday last week Dawn and I walked out on the east coast of the UK and found the most remote and quiet spot overlooking a gorgeous blue sea and all you could hear was the occasional gull and the gentle movement of the ocean. And we just sat and took it all in.

In one of those times, I had a deep spiritual encounter with God. I was lying on my back, resting my head on my backpack. I stared into an almost cloudless blue sky. A scripture that I don't recall preaching on or studying or had read about recently or indeed anything like that at all, just dropped into my head. Actually more like exploded into my mind with precision and clarity.

It was Luke 1: 46 And Mary said, "My soul does magnify the Lord."

Commonly known as Mary's song.

The Magnificat.

As I looked skywards I began to picture Mary, feeling really blessed because of the miracle of Jesus, saying with absolute assurance and with complete confidence, "my soul does magnify the Lord."

Then I heard the voice of God direct a question at me.

"Gary, can you say with absolute confidence that your soul magnifies the Lord?"

I reeled back into the grass a little bit and thought about that deeply.

My soul, my innermost unseen spiritual part. The word magnify I understand in this context means to honour and lift high the Lord, but it could equally mean to make God much bigger on my life.

Putting those things together you get something like this.

Does my soul, my innermost spiritual unseen part reflect the glory and honour of the Lord? Is God seen as big in my life?

Does my soul magnify the Lord?

Can I say that with confidence?

I was spiritually drawn in right at the moment to check out my soul.

How am I responding to God and the world right now? Am I in good spiritual health?

I had convinced myself I was? Because I was filling my life with lots of do do do.

So there in the silence, I looked.

And guess what?

I found some cracks in my soul.

Cracks that I need to take responsibility to repair them.

It was like a spiritual X-ray!

I was able in the silence in the space, to allow the Holy Spirit to show me around my spiritual inner life.

And I was able to take responsibility for the things that obviously need a Holy work.

And it makes a difference.

The monks and nuns throughout the ages have known the importance of making space for silence.

In the silence we have to face our demons, and take responsibility for our souls.

In my studies of silence spanning anything from the desert fathers to how do you find silence in the city, I have picked up an observation that people especially those wrapped up in alternative religious activity and self help think that silence leads us to a place of tranquility and calm.

I can say and I know many monastic people will say, silence doesn't always lead us to that place, it can also lead us to a place of battle and a place of struggle.

And we need it.

We need to face up to ourselves, to our inner battles, to the demons.

We can't just keep filling our lives with noise.

We need space to be quiet.

And I know God needs me to throw this challenge out there.

Well, a couple of challenges really.

So here goes.

When did you last make space for some solitude and silence?
Can you say with confidence my soul does magnify the Lord?

I know the excuses will flood in. They do with me. But you can make time. You need to make time.

God requires us to look into our souls.

He's already there looking.

Seeing.

Everything.

Maybe it's time to take responsibility for the inside of you?