Though hard to conceptualize at the beginning of an Arizona summer, while growing up in North Dakota, there was a practice that my sister and I cherished. We would go out and play in the snow and return to the house with freezing toes and feet. Our mother would get hot cocoa, sit us by the fire and get blankets from out of the dryer to wrap us up. In a few minutes we were warm, content and the outside world just did not seem as brutal and cold as it did a few minutes ago.
Our spiritual lives are much like this. Many times, the slow erosion of our souls is not detected as we frantically govern calendars, emails and meetings – all while making vain attempts at witty entries to our social media. Suddenly, we discover a gaping hole in our soul like a sink hole in the ground. Rather than engulfing houses and cars, it consumes our values, our morals and our very reality. How could we get to this point? How could we miss the subtle erosion of our souls until we are on the precipice of a spiritual, emotional, and physical collapse?
The best and lasting remedy to address this foundation-eroding place in life is a practice, or even the habit, of silence in the presence of God. This is not a place to rehearse your “give me” list; it is not about you; it is about God. It is time spent with Him, for Him, unto Him. It is a place to let Him speak to us (and He will) if we can cease the constant control of one way communication in worship that is only from us and about us, to begin to only focus on Him. If we need a life reset, a situation reset or just feel distant from God there are some practices to shock your spirit into a spiritual reset.