Solitude

I have been so out of whack of any schedule that I ended up skipping April all together... So I've ended up moving all of my months over by one. So this month I'm going to be focusing on silence and solitude... I'm hoping to have an 8 hour retreat of silence and learning to find moments of silence in the middle of the day. I'm going to be focusing on speaking less and listening more... I want to measure my words carefully and not talk simply to fill silence. We'll see how well that goes :)

Service and Confession

During March I focused on the discipline of service. Since service came right after the discipline of stewardship/simplicity, which lead me to stepping down from a ministry in order to be a good steward of my time and not spread myself thin, I was totally uncertain as to how to be disciplined in the area of service. These disciplines were coming at a time when my husband and I were having a lot of conversation about and I was being challenged to think about over-commitment. When I automatically thought of stewardship of my time and service, I thought of pushing myself further and harder, stepping into new volunteer positions or new ministries. God has totally been showing me that my initial focus,  when I think of these disciplines, often misses the heart of these disciplines are for. I read an article about laziness and over-commitment and these lines stood out to me the most:

"God's will is that we do the tasks He has given us to do, not more and not less... so let us not be over-committed; rather fully committed to what God has asked us to do".  

Reading that caused me to step and back and ask myself and ask God, "what is it that God has called me to do?". On the most basic of levels, I have two main areas in my life right now that are new that God has called me to and that need genuine attention, devotion, prayer, focus and service: full-time work and marriage. The thing is... these two areas aren't flashy. You can't add "serves at work" or "serves husband" to your resume. These are areas the world, and even the Christian community sometimes, overlooks as areas of service. But the thing is, these two areas are where God has placed me, they take up the majority of my time in a day/week and to not pour energy and prayer and intentional service into them is to not invite God to change my heart and do work in the two biggest areas of my life! So my conviction was and is to continue to pray that God would give me a servant's heart at my place of work and a servant's heart in my marriage.

This month, April, I'm looking at the discipline of confession. When I first saw that this month was going to focus on confession I got a little tense. What automatically popped into my mind was some forced regimen of picking through my whole life, all of my thoughts and actions to find any ounce of possible sin and confessing it to an accountability buddy; I thought of a legalistic approach to confession. So the first thing I wanted to do was read what the bible says about confession and read some literature on confession.

Psalm 51, James 4:7-10, 1 John 1:9, Mark 6:12, Luke 3:8, (and more!) all talk about confessing our sins to the Lord and having a repentant heart; being in a position of righteousness before God through the confession of our sins and accepting Christ as our Saviour. The website, discipleshiptools.org has an article on confession and says:

"Confession is the event of responding to the Gospel's message, then acknowledging our faith publicly. But, as a discipline, confession becomes a continual process where we conform our lives to His Way so our faith applies to our lives.... we lead a life that confesses wrongdoings and is accountable. This means we change our minds and ways so we are a soul at rest in Him and so our motives, values, goals, aspirations and plans are about seeing Christ's Lordship and standing firm in Him, not seeking our own personal agenda."

I can honestly say that this is already a fundamental part of my daily prayer life and part of the decisions I make; praise God! But I will be seeking where/how I can grow deeper with God in this area of discipline.

Fasting

This past month I focused on fasting...to be honest fasting is something I never really do. I sort of push it to the back of my mind and ignore it. My family came from a very rigid and religious background where fasting was extremely important for us to do - the focus was more on "works" than grace through faith. When we as a family broke free from this and I accepted Christ into my heart I also broke free from everything I associated to be "religious" and binding.
Nearing the end of February my pastor was doing a series on prayer, and he spoke on fasting. He said somethings that really convicted me! The sermon was a reminder that in order to increase my spiritual hunger I must increase my physical hunger. Later that week in my quiet time I read in Isaiah how God called his people but they were too busy satisfying themselves with worldly pleasures that they did feel a desire to know God more (I'm obviously paraphrasing lol). This really hit home, as I realized that the more satisfied I feel in this world (even with food) the more I will lack in fervency for the Lord. Since then I have made Tuesday mornings - my mornings to fast, pray and commit myself completely to the Lord. It is a time where I have uninterrupted quiet times and I am pleased and thankful to say that they have been my most sweetest times of prayer and worship. I am still growing and learning through this journey but I am so thankful for my sweet times with the Lord - where I have been able to acknowledge my weakness and cry out for HIS strength.

Stewardship

I spent February focusing on stewardship. I found it ended up being a month of really thinking and praying about how I can be a good steward of my time. Surprisingly, it lead me to stepping down from a ministry. When I initially thought about simplicity and stewardship, my mind went to material things. But God has opened my eyes this month to the concept of simplifying my time so that I can really press in and focus and devote energy and prayer and intention to an area that I know God has called me to be faithful and persevere in.

I've worn virtually three main outfits this month. They consist of: a hoodie, two pairs of jeans and two different sweaters: one black and one white. I've been pretty lenient with my "simple" wardrobe by allowing myself to wear different tank tops with the sweaters and I often wear scarves. So, maybe not three "outfits," but certainly three base outfits. It's been an interesting month.

I was initially worried (and I'll admit, still sometimes am) that people would notice what I had worn the week before. Lucky for me, I only frequent places about once a week, so I figured if I could remember what I had worn the week before, I'd just swap it out for a different outfit that week. The problem has been, however, that I cannot remember, for the life of me, what I wore yesterday... which is sad, seeing that I don't have many choices this month.

I've learned that people think about me and notice me a lot less than I think about them thinking about me and noticing me. I had the idea that people would think I was gross and extremely unfashionable if they noticed that I was wearing the same thing every single week... or day. And I suppose the key word in that sentence is if... if they noticed. They really don't. It's so easy to get caught up in what I wear, what I look like, what matches, what's clean, what's dirty, what fits well, what doesn't... when really, all that stuff doesn't matter.

Additionally, I've been cooking simpler meals and we've eaten many more vegetarian meals then we're used to and I've seen a decrease of $15-30/week in our grocery bill. It's crazy!! I've been so encouraged by this, thinking about where that extra money could... I mean, we could support another child through World Vision or Compassion by simply cutting down our meals in some way. Sure, we eat a lot more left overs than before, but we're also a lot less wasteful-- which has been wonderful!

I've been so convicted this month by this issue of simplicity. I would normally have said that I live a simple life. I do compared to many people I know, but I'm not sure that's enough to be considered simple. Sure, I don't go shopping, I don't have data on my phone, we have very limited bandwidth, we only go out for dates when we have gift cards, etc. But truly, none of these things really limits me in any meaningful way. Sacrifice is not built into my life. I don't sacrifice my comfort or lifestyle very much for the sake of others or the advancement of God's kingdom. I have access to absolutely everything I want or desire. I do not have to curb my desires too much and I get to enjoy a warm, furnished house; warm, healthy meals; warm, comfortable clothing, among so many other things.

I live in excess and had been so blinded by the surplus around me that I had come to believe that my excess wasn't that extraordinary.

Ah, I want Jesus to instill simplicity in me so deeply. I want to learn how to live simply so that others may simply live.

A Free Gift

So I gave a homeless girl my hat yesterday. Whoop-de-doo.
I spent the day in Toronto and felt overwhelmed by all the homeless people sitting out in the cold. I felt super powerless to do anything and felt a horrible weight knowing that I was only cold because I had a 25 minute walk, while they were cold because they didn't have anywhere to go. I felt sick thinking about all the warm clothes, scarves, mittens, and hats sitting in my closet back home.

So when a young woman approached me asking for help and saying she was cold, I felt stuck. No, I didn't want to give her spare change. Oh, wait? You're cold. Do you want my hat? She gratefully accepted the hat. And I walked away feeling just an tiny bit smug. See, you are living more simply this month. You just parted with a possession... just like that.

And then I felt a gust of wind, and I bunched my scarf together, threw my coat hood up and thrust my gloved hands in my pockets. Why didn't I offer my scarf? Or my gloves? Or my coat?! Well, because that was my favourite scarf. And my warmest gloves. Besides, they're new. And the coat? That's ridiculous. Why would I give my coat away?

Then it just sunk deep into my heart that I wasn't operating out of a spirit of generosity in order to meet needs. I could easily give that hat... I didn't like that one that much anyway. Besides, I have four more at home. It was a gift that cost me nothing.

I still have so much to learn in this month of simplicity.

Just spent a wonderful evening devoted to solitude and listened to a great sermon that I want to share. Definitely worth a listen to if you can find the time :) Hope it encourages, challenges and blesses you as it did me.

Solitude and Silence by Matt Clark