As I’ve been meditating and thinking on what to write this month, I felt compelled to expand on my previous article (which can be found here). The primary driver of this was my own life over the past month, which can be summarised quite well by Dallas Williard:
“Our general human failing is that we want what is right and important, but we don’t really want to commit to the kind of life that will produce the action we know to be right, and the conditions we want to enjoy. “– Dallas Willard
I genuinely struggled to find time to abide and be with Jesus amidst the craziness and I found myself laughing at the incredulity of my aims.
But God gently convicted me that the desire to abide with Him was a good aim and goal when one of my friends quipped, “Humans are terrible estimators. We overestimate how much we can do in the near term, but underestimate how much we can get done in the long term”.
The practice of small steps
As anyone who has had to learn an instrument will tell you – it takes thousands of hours to master. And that’s thousands of well-focused hours intentionally practicing (not just playing for the heck of it). Similarly, abiding with Jesus is a skill that we need to learn and cultivate.
We often look at our end goal and think – “ I should be able to spend deep and fulfilling time with Jesus now that I have set it aside”. For all the good of the Reformation (and there were plenty!), one of the tragedies was the loss of the practices that our forerunners had developed as means of engaging with our loving father.
We have forgotten how to learn and grow in our walk and relationship with Jesus. There is more to a relationship than just reading our Bible and praying (though these are great practices and form the core of how we do relate to God).
For example, in a vast majority of circles, prayer explicitly means supplicative prayer, where we ask God for something. We have forgotten the joy of just basking in God’s presence, as David mentions in Psalm 27, and this can be achieved through contemplative prayer.
Even as I write the sentence above, it seems like such a lofty goal and I find myself burdened at the prospect of finding another thing to do in my life. But, such is the grace of our Lord, that he often gives us opportunities to implement these things.
One of my friends introduced me to the concept of a “daily office” – where he consciously pauses about 3 times throughout his day for about 5-15 minutes and imagines himself entering God’s presence, with the intention to remind himself that he is always with God and before his presence.
He then expands this to a 30 minute silence in the weekend (or if he’s stuck in a traffic jam!) where he is just with God – and there is no agenda.
When I heard that practice, I was so encouraged to try it out. 5 minutes, 3 times a day seems really doable. I found myself remembering and including God far more throughout my day than I normally did as a result of this practice.
Granted, I’m human, so there were many times my mind wandered – but once again, our Father in heaven is so gracious to us. Much like a child distracted in the aisle of a supermarket, God gently corralled me back to him and I was allowed to just be with him.
I don’t speak this as someone who has mastered abiding with God. Rather, this comes from someone who struggles to do so, and has found success and joy in these small steps. My hope is to grow in this, and to help others do so – much like the musician who slowly and intentionally builds their skill over the long term.
There are many other practices like this – which are small steps or practices we can try to include in our day to remind ourselves of God, and, specifically, that we can just be with him. I’d recommend having a look at Spiritual Disciplines Handbook by Adele Ahlberg Calhoun, or Celebration of Discipline by Richard Foster.
I disciple university students in the University of Canterbury through the Navigators while currently working towards a Master of Divinity. Outside of this, my wife and I enjoy rock climbing and going on adventures with our dog.
