..silence

The word and concept of solitude grew wings and flew out of my life the moment I stepped into my dorm room. The role of solitude in my life has slowly been demoted to a luxury rather than a spiritual discipline or a requirement for spiritual growth. Living with three women on a floor with twenty-five other girls on a campus with hundreds of undergraduates is forcing me to redefine the essential practice of solitude for my personal sanity and relationship with God.

In the first paragraph Paul Tournier makes the point that “[people] no longer lead their own lives; they are dragged along by events.” This statement has been fleshed out in my life and the results are starting to become heavy on my heart. I have allowed my passion for Jesus to be manifested in activities rather than in personal communion with him through simply being with him. As I continue to grow, I more clearly see the danger of an abundance of activities and events combined with a frazzled lifestyle, devoid of the peace of God that transcends my understanding. The converse absence of organized and structured God seeking allows God to work on me personally and demonstrates more precisely his intimate intensions within my life.

In the presence of my activities I commune with others who love Jesus and their fellowship is appreciated and much needed for my spiritual formation, but the other side of that coin is just as important. The hour I spend in the morning, reading my Bible and praying, brings me into the presence of Jesus and sets me by his side for the day. When my discipline falls victim to my busy lifestyle, I become lost in the waves of busyness and do not clearly realize that Jesus is standing next to me, waiting for me to recognize his existence. Because I am a Christian, I am a temple of God, a resting place for the Holy Spirit; therefore my life needs to be a temple in order to experience him. If there were televisions and math textbooks strewn around the church I worship in, focusing on the presence of God in that place would be infinitely more difficult. Silence clears my life of those distractions and leaves me alone with God to talk to him and be his child, in the pureness of surrounding and mind.