When I am at the beach, I like to think of being on “turtle time.” I love the rhythm I get into with the sound of the waves and the breeze, the sunshine kissing my skin and water lapping at my toes as I walk for miles by the shore. My husband said one time that it scared him when I got to the beach—because I turned into a beach bum! My normal get-it-done approach gave way to hours in a hammock or on a beach towel.
Living through a pandemic feels like “turtle time,” but not nearly so enjoyable. Life has slowed to a crawl. Ordinary errands require heroic effort to accomplish—with distancing, mask, gloves, sanitizing wipes, etc. While turtle time is relaxing, pandemic time is stressful. But, it has provided time for reflection about time expectations in our culture.
When I was in the third grade, I was introduced to the Western view of time. It became my taskmaster for most of my life. Our beloved teacher, with all good intentions, instilled into us—or at least into me—the value of each moment, day, week, month, year. She convinced me that time was precious and should be used wisely. I would still agree that it is true.
Productivity was the goal, and that was a good goal. I clearly understood that a moment misused was a moment wasted that could never be retrieved or made up. Now, mind you, I did not grasp all that in the third grade. That was the beginning of the molding messages I would hear at school, home, and church. We were all fully engulfed in the western, “protestant” work ethic, which has served us well. We have built a great society due to our industriousness.
It is possible, however, to lose our own soul in the pursuit of productivity. I know that is a strong statement, but Jesus spoke of gaining the whole world and losing your soul (Matthew 16:24-26). You see, He was pointing to another way to use the time we have been given on earth—a way that best honors the Image of God in our being and frees us to grow in communion with Him. It is the way of the Spirit that moves in ways and directions you would least expect. In God’s way, you freely “waste” time to be in a relationship with Him for the purpose of growing into persons who fulfill His purpose in the world in His time and ways. The Psalmist knew this way, for he posited God saying, “Be still and know that I am God” (Psalm 46:10).
Meeting God in Silence and Solitude
Some hungry souls discovered, or re-discovered, this practice in the third century; but it got lost from everyday practice for most believers in the centuries of the Middle Ages, Renaissance and Enlightenment, even until now. Between the third and sixth centuries, though, devout followers of Christ left the cities to dig deeper into the promises of the Gospel. In church history, we know those hungry souls as the Desert Fathers and Mothers—believers who longed to follow Christ without worldly interference. So, they went into the deserts and wilderness areas—literally—and lived there where they could pursue their soul’s desire for God in Silence and Solitude.
They chose to live on “desert time.” They were longing to be fully transformed in Christ as the Gospel promises. They gave up on the world’s ways that the imperial church had embraced and chose to follow the example of great men of old who found communion with God in lonely places—from Abraham to Moses, to Elijah, to John the Baptist and our Lord Jesus. The result in the lives of the Desert Fathers and Mothers was not lack of productivity, but some of the richest spiritual insights that Christianity has ever known. We are indebted to the writings they left behind for those who would come behind them.
Small bands of believers down through the centuries have known the value of wasting time with God, while the vast wave of Christianized westerners and their proselytes around the world have followed the path that unfolded from analytical, rational, and scientific world views. While our intellectual expansion has built a fantastic world, hungry souls became alienated from the way of the Spirit and became caught up in a hectic drive for success, power, authority, prosperity and notoriety. Pardon my pointing out the obvious that we wish to ignore, but we have not gained widespread happiness promised by living in tune with the world at large. However, there is hope!
Fruitful Practices of Faith
There is a way of growing in Christ that has come to light again in the most recent decades. A quiet spiritual renaissance is taking place as great writings out of earlier times, from deeply spiritual men and women, have been translated and published around the world. This movement has revealed that our spiritual forefathers lived their daily lives by some fruitful practices of faith, worship and service—known today as Spiritual Disciplines. Practices, fine-tuned by the “desert entrepreneurs,” are once again being worked into the lives of average Christians who share that same hunger for God and that same longing to grow in Christ in all the ways that it is possible to do so.
Practices such as Lectio Divina and Centering Prayer, when correctly incorporated into one’s life, create a space of Grace in our souls where the promised new birth of the Spirit in us can be actualized in the fullness and abundance of the promises in the New Testament. These disciplines will not be productive when engaged in a perfunctory approach. There is no magic in them; but when reverently engaged in deep faith, they become a doorway for the Lord Jesus to bring about in us what He prayed for us during His last prayer with his disciples. It is the path to find that for which we most deeply long.
Jesus Prays for All Believers (John 17:20-26, NIV)
“My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one—I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.
“Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world.
“Righteous Father, though the world does not know you, I know you, and they know that you have sent me. I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them.”
Finding Our Deepest Longings Through Quiet Time with God
Through Christ’s prayer for us, we gain assurance that God longs for union and communion with us. So, I encourage you to step off the merry-go-round of cultural, social and professional expectations, and carve out some time in your month, week, or ideally in each day, to “waste time” with God. Use our current “pandemic time” as a gift for your soul. Begin your day with prayer and sacred study of scripture by the Lectio Divina method. Create a breath prayer to carry in your heart throughout the day. Pause at lunch for intercessory prayer—focused on prayer for the world. Take a 20-minute break in the afternoon for Centering Prayer and close the day with an Examen. For more information about these practices, read my article on Spiritual Formation Fundamentals.
If you will “waste” some time growing closer to the Lord, you will find the pace of your spiritual growth quickened and deepened; and the promises of the New Testament will begin to be alive in you in a new way. I hope you will soon give glory to God for the growth experienced in the Spirit during “pandemic time.”
Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®
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Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
