Silence and growth

"It was the quietest wood you could possibly imagine. There were no birds, no insects, no animals, and no wind. You could almost feel the trees growing. The pool he had just got out of was not the only pool. There were dozens of others - a pool every few yards as far as his eyes could reach. You could almost feel the trees drinking the water up with their roots. This wood was very much alive." C.S.Lewis - The Magician's Nephew

Sometimes breaking silence is useful even if you have nothing to say. If only because saying something gives a basis for new thoughts to crystallise upon.

Reflecting on my last post I realise that it is not so much the quality of the silence which is different, but the emotional state I am in as I experience it. This may be so obvious that it hardly needs stating, but I found it a helpful thought. Why? Because my emotional state is only part of the equation. God's view of the silence may be completely different.

Occasionally I am asked to preach. Initially I used to worry about this. Now I find I quite enjoy it. Not least because I am sure that I learn far more from it than I am able to pass on. The last time I preached I was given a free topic, and I chose the life of Abraham. In preparing, I found myself wondering how Abraham coped with the silence. From God's initial call to the fulfillment of the promise he waited twenty-five years. And if the bible records every conversation God had with him, for the majority of those years God was silent.

The next line of the Pink Floyd quotation I used in my last blog is "of promises broken". If the story of Abraham teaches anything it is that God keeps his promises. Just because God was silent it didn't mean he was not active, or that Abraham was not growing.

Solitude and growth

"I've told you these things for a purpose: that my joy might be your joy, and your joy wholly mature. This is my command: Love one another the way I loved you. This is the very best way to love. Put your life on the line for your friends. You are my friends when you do the things I command you. I'm no longer calling you servants because servants don't understand what their master is thinking and planning. No, I've named you friends because I've let you in on everything I've heard from the Father." John 15: 11-15 (The Message)

Once again I find myself considering whether hardship is a prerequisite for growth. A problem that I thought had been solved months ago resurfaced this week. My initial response was one of anger and the urge to lash out at those behind it. This was followed by a need to retreat - if only briefly. I took myself off to the nearest available piece of green space - a cemetery - and wrestled with God. After this the need to fight remained, but my target changed. The problem itself is the thing to be fought, not the people who raised it.

Now, a few days later, I can see that response as a relatively new progression for me. The retreat to a place of solitude prior to action. I suppose my initial retreat was born out of conflict. However, since weaving solitude into my daily life I have moved away from that root. The race into God's arms stems as much from a desire for his presence as for his help. I suppose it is a more mature response.

It seems to me that if we only rely on God in times of conflict the seed is desperation not relationship. Such a seed engenders growth because we see God's ability to intervene and protect. It breaks our independence. But it is feeble growth compared to that which arises from relationship. Time spent with God leads to inter-dependence. A richer experience of a bigger God who is not just a protector. It sounds almost wrong to say it makes us less dependant on God, but I can think of no better way to put it. Or perhaps it is more that it changes the source of our dependence from desperation, hopelessness and lack of self-worth to a knowledge of acceptance. We are friends, not servants. We come not as beggars or refugees as a last resort to flee from disaster, but rather as members of the family confident that disaster has already been averted.

God's megaphone?

I've been thinking a lot recently about the place of conflict in our lives. I think it's pretty fair to say that it is a biblical concept that God uses trials to shape our lives and teach us more about both himself and ourselves. But I've been wondering whether they are a necessary part of discovering God, or whether it is the only way that he can get us to pay attention.

I raised the idea with some colleagues the other day, and the the responses varied. Some thought that trials were inevitable - life is never straightforward and God just uses what comes up to refine us. Others thought that even if we were able to cut straight through and learn directly about God, that we would still struggle but just with more advanced things. To my surprise none of them seemed to feel that we could grow without trials.

The conversation brought to mind the film Shadowlands. In it C S Lewis is depicted as saying

I'm not sure that God particularly wants us to be happy. He wants us to love and be loved. He wants us to grow up. I suggest to you that it is because God loves us that he makes us the gift of suffering. Or to put it another way, pain is God's megaphone to rouse a deaf world.

At least part of this is a quotation from The Problem of Pain although I haven't been able to verify the full statement as being authentic Lewis. Regardless it is a hard statement, and one I find I cannot entirely buy into.

I see that being put in a place where we have run out of our own resources places our dependence on God. I'm just not entirely sure that it follows that such a place is the only place where we can grow...