Discomfort is beneficial?

I went to a spring break retreat in Texas this past weekend.

     Side note: Texas is beautiful. I want to live there. Like, now.


The series of lessons was on Holiness.

Could there possibly a more convicting topic?? I think not.


It was definitely a weekend full of "Yes, Lord. I'm listening." moments. 

It was like the pastor was talking directly to me. Uncomfortable? Yes. But absolutely necessary.

One lesson in particular has been like an annoyingly persistent alarm clock, replaying in my mind every few hours ever since. 


Holiness as Silence and Solitude

I love distractions. Don't you?

In the quiet, it's harder to hide, to ignore.

Especially in this day and age, distractions are so easy to come by. We live in unreality. We fill our minds with the music, stories, and useless information that constantly bombard us.

And, oh, how the college life is FULL of distractions.

The pastor read to us this excerpt from Thomas Merton's book Thoughts in Solitude, which I thought was extremely potent.

"There is no greater disaster in the spiritual life than to be immersed in unreality . . . When our life feeds on unreality, it must starve. It must therefore die."

That's a hard lesson to learn, because we are afraid of the silence. Or, at least, I know I am. 
When I am surrounding myself with noise, I can pretend that everything is fine. But, in the silence, I am forced to confront the fact that all is not well.

The Bible says "Be still and know that I am God."
In Solitude, in the silence, we are no longer able to hide from the Holy Spirit's voice.
We see ourselves as we truly are.

But, this is good. Healthy.
We need to be reminded of how fallible we truly are. 
It is only when we admit that we have a problem that we can ask God to help us solve it.
It is only when we admit that we are lacking that we can improve.

It is only when we step back from unreality that we can see it with the right perspective.

It's a hard lesson to learn.
And one that I think I will always be learning, in this earthly life, at least.

My prayer and "resolution" for the rest of the semester is that God will teach me to silence the noise, ignore the distractions, and 'be still' before Him.

Because nothing scares me more than the idea of becoming spiritual dry and dead.

Oh Lord, let me never become content with where I am spiritually. Never.