Rupert’s Blog

I will look at some Scriptures that I think describe this experience of “desert” in another post, but here I want to introduce other phrases that describe this “desert” time.

Some people use the phrase absence when describing this season of God not seeming to be present - and it can seem that God is absent. However, it is only our perception that God is absent, as we know that God can’t really be absent and, in any meaningful sense, still be God! God, by definition, is present. All the time. Everywhere. What I am describing in this series is times when it seems to us that God is absent.

Actually God is with us, but in a different way from the way we usually discern Him. It is as though He moves from staring into our face to standing behind us. If we are very quiet and still we can possibly feel the faintest movement of air as He “breathes” on the back of our neck. God is with us, but we have very little sense of his presence. So I have coined the phrase the “withness of God“. So often we when we talk about the presence of God we are talking about something tangible, experiential. People say how wonderful it is be in the presence of God (and it is!). But for some people, when in a “desert” season, the presence of God is not a reality. But the withness of God is always a reality, regardless of what we feel or experience. Sometimes, the difficulty is discerning how God is with us.

Due to God’s withness, I prefer not to use the term absence. Therefore, others use the term hiddeness to describe times when God seems absent. God is not absent, but is also not always clearly seen. Sometimes, he is hidden from our spiritual sight, our ability to discern Him. What we are facing here is the difficulty of sensing and knowing a God who can’t be seen by our normal eyes. He is Spirit. We are confined by our physical bodies. So as Paul says in Corinthians, “we see in part”. Dimly. Unclear. There are times when God seems to come into focus, and we have a sense of clarity. Other times He seems invisible, unclear, out of focus. These are the seasons of hiddeness.

I prefer the term hiddeness to absence, although I am still not totally happy with the phrase. It can seem that God is playing some cosmic game of hide and seek, and while there maybe some truth in that some of the time, there are many times when this doesn’t seem the case. We will look in future posts, at the reasons why we might end up in a season of “desert” but it isn’t always because God is playing a game with us.

Hence I have used the term “desert” to describe these seasons. The image is strong and alive. Desert is a very strong metaphor (and reality!) in Scripture. I love the visual picture of walking across the desert, of a journey with companions, moving from one terrain (perhaps a fruitful place?) to another. The journey is part of the process, not just the destination. In this picture we can embrace the desert experience as part of God’s leading for us. It doesn’t have to be bad or negative. It isn’t always easy. But it is part of walking with God throughout our whole live, and one that I think we would do well not to run away from.

The more a human being advances in the Christian faith, the more they live in the presence of God as an absence, the more they accept to die to the idea of becoming aware of God, of fathoming Him. For they have learned, while advancing, that God is unfathomable. And from then on the presence of God assumes value in their eyes only against the backdrop of absence. The mystic, in his long and complicated pilgrimage experiences alternately the presence and absence of God. But, by degrees, the absence of God is felt more and more and the mystic understands that the absence is now the norm. Thus the mystic is someone who has had a long-term confrontation with God, like Jacob in the struggle that he waged all through the night, someone who does not cease to confront God. God always precedes us, we see Him only from behind, He walks ahead. He is ahead of us. What the mystic experiences - and every Christian is a mystic because it is not the great illuminations that are the mark of the mystic but the night, an everyday night - is a kind of distancing from God in proportion to advances in the deepening of their faith.
Jean Francois Six

Tags: Christian Life, Desert, Wilderness, Hiddeness of God, Absence of God

See previous posts:

• Living in the Desert 2
• Living in the Desert 1

Image: www.everystockphoto.com

I am tentatively attempting to return to occasional blogging, when I have time (rather than when I have something to say - which I pretty much do most of the time … whether it is worth listening to is another matter!).

My first post back was an opening shot looking the subject of “living in the desert“. Today I want to try to define what I mean by desert times in our faith.

One of the things that I have appreciated about my church tradition is the emphasis that God is present. He is not remote, far away, uninvolved, removed, uninterested. He is present, here, now, you can experience Him, He can fill you with His Spirit, empower you, touch you. You can have a relationship with Him. He speaks. He guides.

It brought faith alive to me in my late teens, having had no such expectations in my childhood church experiences. God became real. Exciting. Like a bubbling spring at the top of a mountain. Twisting and turning, sloshing and splurging, speeding its way down the mountain. Faith seemed so vibrant.

The problem is the expectation this emphasis produces in us or in our church culture: “It should always be like this“. For some people it sometimes seems as though it is. Although I do sometimes wonder what is happening beneath the surface, the mask, the hype. Is it real? Or are they statements of desire, rather than reality? Or are the harder, dryer times forgotten?

If you do find yourself in a “dry” time, I have been left with the impression that is not good, something to avoid at all costs, and get out of as quick as possible. It is as though we are standing on the beach, and the waves should constantly be crashing down over us. If they are not, it is because we have wandered too far into the sand dunes, and we just need to get back into the sea. “They are not in a good place spiritually” people cry. “If you are dry, lets us pray for you to be refreshed“. If only it was that easy all the time!

There are seasons when we do walk through different terrains. Sometimes the terrain is fruitful, full of life, green, vibrant, alive. But sometimes we find ourselves walking through a desert: dry, barren, lifeless, hot, dusty, and very quiet. God seems very distant or absent. It seems as though he has deserted us! He doesn’t seem to be speaking or guiding us any more. When we pray we don’t have any sense of someone we are talking to or communing with. The Bible is dry, and we end up reading without any sense of God speaking or understanding. Worship is difficult; church gatherings, especially the exuberant sort, are painful and excruciating, only emphasising our sense of aloneness and desolation. We seem so different from all these people who are passionately praising and thanking God for his presence and activity in their lives.

In previous seasons, we probably learnt particular ways of pursuing our relationship with God. We have found ways of prayer, reading, worship and other spiritual disciplines that help us to come into God’s presence and listen to His voice. But as we enter the desert, these disciplines no longer have the same effect. No longer do they bring life and nourish us. They seem dry and empty.

This can leave us feeling adrift, the anchor points that held us in our relationship with God seem no longer that strong. Our sense of drifting can be exacerbated by our sense of aloneness, a road less travelled, and often with a strong sense that we have done something wrong, we have missed a signpost somewhere along the way and ended up a desert that God didn’t want us to be in, and nor did we!

I will look in future posts some of the reasons why we do end up in these desert seasons, but suffice to say at this point, that often God seems to be the one that leads us into the desert. Sure sometimes the deserts of faith of our own making, but often they are not. God leads us into a desert, as He led Jesus into a desert. He leads us into the desert to meet with Him, meet with ourselves and be transformed. But more of that in later posts…

We need to find a way of positively speaking about these seasons and helping people to navigate these terrains. There aren’t many people who are desert dwellers, but there are some, and they are great companions for the journey. I am interested in being one of those desert companions, and hearing of your experiences of desert in your faith. Perhaps we can learn together about the often uncharted territory of walking with God in the desert.

What are your experiences of desert seasons of faith? What was it like?

Tags: Desert, Wilderness, God, Christian Life, Prayer

Image: FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Tomorrow we have a staff retreat day at the Bield retreat house near Perth. The Bield is a fantastic, beautiful place with converted barns and stables made into meeting spaces, prayer cells, a lounge, and some bedrooms for those who stay overnight. It has all been done very tastefully.

Over the last few years the staff team from Community Church have gone for a day away on retreat 3 times a year - a day of retreating from our work to pray. Most of the day we spend on our own with God, but at the beginning and the end of the day we gather together to “check in” and feedback at the end.

I find the surroundings, the peace of the place, the locally produced food, and just having some time to be still, pray, and allow God to speak is invariably refreshing and increasing essential.

I am going tomorrow wanting to know something of God’s heart and wisdom for me. I am hoping to find something of the silence I found on holiday. I have a sense that the season I have been in with the Lord is nearing an end (which would be wonderful!) but I want to learn all I need to as I cross this particular terrain of my journey with God. I would appreciate your prayer for tomorrow.

Tags: The Bield, Retreat, Prayer, Community Church, Community Church Edinburgh

I’m back. Andrew has done a great job of posting some stuff on the parables (and I will do the next one tomorrow) while I have been taking a bit of a break from blogging, reading and commenting. But now I am back!

We have had a great holiday in France in my blog absence … this was a deluxe outside BBQ and the view from our gite (holiday house). It was a great time to hang out the family, swim, read, sleep, think, pray (a bit), listen to music and talking books, explore French towns and markets, eat and drink, and see some friends.

This gite was up a mountain, about 900m high, in Voges region of France … a small village at the end of a treacherous road, miles from nowhere. And it was so quiet (when the nearest neighbours stopped mowing their huge meadow!). When all man made noise stopped, and the kids had gone to bed, and the Ipod was turned off … silence. Well actually it wasn’t silence so much as loads of crickets, wind in the trees, birds singing, and if you listened very carefully the sound of a stream a few hundred yards away at the bottom of the valley.

All these sounds were there all the time, but in the midst of the lawnmower, everyone talking, music, the very occasional car there was just too much noise to hear the other sounds …

… and when all the other things were “off”, it took me many moments to tune into the different sounds.

And isn’t that so like the still small voice of God? Drowned out by the crashing sounds of life around us. And even when they cease, it takes some time to tune into a different frequency.

How do you find silence? What helps you tune in?

Tags: Prayer, Listening to God, Holiday, France

Lent is almost upon us, starting on Wednesday 21st February. For many years I haven’t been that engaged with the historical Christian festivals, but recently I have began to appreciate the rhythm of the year, times of feasting and fasting and prayer … or that is the intention anyway!

So in approaching this Lent I have been pondering what I might do. The problem (for me at any rate) is that I am not very good at following through on my resolutions. Every advent I intend to take time to reflect each day on the meaning of Christmas, but fail miserably. By New Year, I have realised that those resolutions only lead to a greater sense of guilt when yet again they don’t last that long. So the thought of being more focused in prayer for 40 days seems a massive mountain to climb.

There are a couple of good posts worth recommending: Maggi Dawn has a short useful reminder of what Lent is all about. Bruce Stanley has some interesting thoughts on “Friends, God and Enemies” at embody. But that all seems a bit like setting myself up for a fall. I need something that will remind me of the Lent, but something that I can commit to, and catch up with, if a day or two (or three or four) turn out busier than expected.

So then I came across this from Christian Aid, called “Counting your Blessings”. The idea is that you give money each day, to remind ourselves that we have so much in the West, and many in this world of ours have so little [Molly has taken this idea rather further than I am suggesting on her 30 days of nothing]. So for example, on Wednesday I am told: “Every year 1.6 million of the world’s poorest people die from respiratory infections, aggravated by smoke from open fires in their homes. Give 5p for every radiator in your home, and 10p for every fireplace.“

On Monday 12th March: “Nearly one-third of the world’s population is ‘off-grid’ – living without an electricity supply. Give 5p for every plug socket in your home.”

And on Thursday 22nd March: “In some countries, the media is strictly monitored and shows very limited and biased news. Give 20p if you bought a newspaper today and 10p for every time you caught the radio or TV news.“

You total up each day, and then at the end of Lent you have an amount to give (to Christian Aid of course). Given how many power sockets we have and what a news junkie I am, this could be an expensive Lent. I think I might have to give up chocolate after all to pay for it all …

Let me know what you are intending on doing?

On Sunday, we tried a bit of imaginative contemplation using the parable of the tenants (Lk 20). Following on from the 5 Act theory on NT Wright, or the 6 act adaptation I suggested in another blog, I wanted to help us become part of the parable, to be part of the story, that would help us as we live out the 5th Act now. So often as I have meditated on the Bible, it has been like watching a movie … I have observed the action from a distance. Here I wanted us to take it further, and be one of the characters in the story. To feel, hear, taste, see, touch … to experience it. And see what emerges: of who God is to us, or who we are. It worked really well, and the feedback was fantastic (at least I think so!). So encouraging to see how people saw themselves as part of the story, and what was revealed in that process.

I love what Margaret Silf says, in her book, Taste and See …

Imagination is a God given gateway to prayer, a place where I meet God in ways my busy conscious mind cannot interfere.

She goes on to give some ways in which we can use our imagination with the gospel stories or (if we adapt slightly) with the parables:

Using our imagination.

What can you see, hear, smell, taste, feel?
What is the weather like? Warm, cold, windy, peaceful, wet, dry?
What seems to be happening in the scene? Who is there? Anyone you recognise?
What kind of ‘atmosphere’ does the scene suggest? Inviting, threatening, vibrant, solemn?
Does any particular part of the scene attract your attention more than the remainder?

Entering the action

Where do you find yourself? Perhaps you one of the crowd, or one of the disciples? Perhaps you feel like an outsider looking in, or perhaps you identity with the person being healed or challenged, or invited into a new relationship with Jesus? Don’t make any judgements, or try to force yourself to be where you think you ought to be. The power of this kind of prayer is in being you really find yourself, and letting the Gospel light shine on that place.

How are you feeling about what is happening in your scene? Disturbed? Attracted? Curious? Afraid? Eager?

Do you feel drawn to speak with anyone there? What do you feel you want to say? What do you feel is being said to you? Can you enter into a conversation with Jesus?

If you noticed, earlier, that on part of the scene drew you more powerfully than any other, let yourself follow that drawing now. In your imagination, go that part of the scene. Without forcing anything against your inclination, just see what it is in that part of the scene is attracting you.