Growing up, I struggled with reading. I didn’t like it at all. I always took the easiest classes so I wouldn’t have to read so many books. Now, just imagine my dismay when I came to faith in Christ and was told the way to really know and hear from God was through a book! Do you want to have a good relationship with Jesus? You better get this big, thick book and read it. Every single day.

It’s not just that I didn’t like reading – and I should add, I don’t mind it anymore. In fact, I love to read. But it’s not even that the Bible is a book, it’s a big book. It’s hundreds and hundreds of pages long. And it can be confusing for some of us. Why are there books inside the book? Why aren’t all the books named after the person who wrote them? Why do some of them get sequels and some of them don’t?

Okay, so the Bible is big, it’s long, and it’s often confusing. In fact, I can tell you with certainty when people read the Bible we often disagree on what it means. There are books that are written to explain the Bible. And then other books are written to explain those books. Then there are books to explain why those books that explain the books are all wrong. It can cause quite a headache.

And yet the Christian community affirms the Bible is holy and authoritative. We use words like “divine inspiration” and “God-breathed.” If it were just any other book, we would tone the language way down. But instead, we dial it up. Because the book we call the Bible is important. It’s very important! It is the primary way that God has chosen to reveal himself to all of us who weren’t around when all of those things went down.

So what do we do with our shared belief about the importance of this book and our disagreements about what it really means? For one, we need to learn how to disagree in love. I think we need to slow down when it comes to calling someone a heretic just because they see things differently than us. The bar for calling something a bad doctrine needs to be raised a bit higher. Instead, we need to make an allowance for each other. You may not see it the way I do. I’ve spent some time studying it and you’ve spent some time reading it, too. With some respect, we can agree to disagree.

But the bigger issue, I think, is when we face certain issues in the Bible that don’t always square with what we know in our heart about Jesus. Take, for instance, times in the Old Testament when God seems to condone genocide. Or how about the whole issue of slavery? When Paul talks about wives submitting to men and being silent in the church, do you all feel a little nervous about that too?

The Bible does not always provide certainty. It’s not as clear as you and I want it to be at times. But it asks me to trust it. Somethings happen in my life I do not fully understand, but I trust that God is there. When I open the word of God, if God is present, then I can trust him to speak to me.

Part of the reason it’s difficult to read and understand the scriptures is that we come from a wrong perspective to being with. We bring our broken and limited selves into how we think about God, and that discomfort stretches us. We enter into a time of spiritual reading where we allow God to take over the text and through it, take over our lives. That is a danger to our egos. Our intellect may reject it. We get nervous when someone starts messing around in our space. But when that person is God, we need to allow it.

How are you allowing God to speak into your life? Do you need to be absolutely certain about every little detail? Or can you release your tension to God and allow him to move in the struggle? And it is a struggle, sometimes. Not just because it’s a big book, but we struggle to read it because it is important. But it’s worth that struggle.

This week at Northbrook we continued our series on spiritual practices by looking at one that we hardly ever hear about anymore, silence and solitude. But I believe it is an incredibly helpful practice. It’s something that we all need in the midst of a culture that prizes noise and busyness. Just getting alone with some peace and quietly daily.

Silence and Solitude is simply creating space in your life to be still and silent in the presence of God, to meet him just outside the busyness of your life. It is how you connect deeply with God and yourself. It’s finding a few minutes a day to sit comfortably with no distractions, no noise – nothing – and just look out a window and encounter God on his terms. That’s it. Easy and simple.

But when I mentioned it, I know that half of you were overjoyed! “Yes! Finally a pastor who tells me I can be all alone, by myself, no one else around.” That’s because you identify as an introvert. But the other half, the extroverts, felt a cold chill. “Wait…you really want me to be all alone? No one else there? No texting or talking? Help!”

I have to admit, I identify with those introverts. I really enjoy spending time alone. I don’t love crowds. It’s not that I can’t be around others. Of course I can, I’m a pastor. I have the incredible privilege of being around the best people in Wisconsin every day.

But a good vacation for me would be on an island, all alone, no one else around to bother me. Just me and the surf. Of course my wife would be there too. Can’t leave her out. But just the two of us.

And even though I’m an introvert at heart, I have to tell you that silence and solitude don’t come naturally to me. That’s because the practice of solitude is not just about being all alone.

Have you ever wondered who was the loneliest human being ever? We’ve all heard about hermits, those who live by themselves in the woods. But if they went two miles they’d be back in civilization. I’m talking about people completely isolated from everyone else.

In the early days of the church there were a group of believers called the “Desert Fathers.” That’s because they lived in the deserts of present day Syria. They would go out, by themselves, build a small building and live isolated. Miles and miles and miles from anyone else. Some of you just sighed heavily at that prospect.

There are also stories of shipwrecks in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Castaways who were left adrift in the Pacific or Atlantic Ocean for days on end. No one with them, all alone, by themselves. Miles and miles and miles of nothing but water.

But the loneliest person in the world? That would be the third man in the moon rocket. Back when we sent people to the moon, they would always have a three-man crew. Two would man the lander to the moon’s surface, while the third would orbit and wait for them to finish before rejoining him. Think of that guy. Once he reached the dark side of the moon, he was 2,225 miles away from the next human being in existence. That’s a long way! That’s almost the same distance from New York City to Los Angeles!

And another thing. When he was on the dark side of the moon, he was shut out from radio contact. So he couldn’t even speak to another human being. But being all by yourself is not the same as being isolated.

Al Worden, who circled the moon during the Apollo 15 command module pilot, said this about being all alone:

There’s a thing about being alone and there’s a thing about being lonely, and they’re two different things. I was alone but I was not lonely. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

What makes solitude and silence enjoyable? It’s not that you’re free from contact with anyone else. You’re still connected in some sense. You’re still reachable in a time of emergency. But what makes the difference is our connection. With God. With ourselves. And ultimately, with others. It is the connection that we make when we are all alone that makes being all alone worth it.

This week we started a series about practice. That’s right, we’re talking about practice. Practice is important. If you’ve ever played a sport, you know that practice is not the game, it gets you ready for the game. You practice in order to be ready when it really matters. Practice makes perfect, right?

So, we’re going to look at a few spiritual practices. Not because spirituality is a game we have to get ready for. But because when we commit to put in the work in our spirit, we will have a better relationship with Jesus, a deeper connection to God, and that’s what really matters.

The first practice we looked at is prayer. Here’s a quick definition of prayer: Prayer is conscious loving union with God. Notice I didn’t explain what words to use or how to make a request. Notice I didn’t give a preferred timeframe for how long a prayer needs to be. Notice I didn’t explain what the proper ending to a prayer is.

We often look at praying as an activity that we ought to do or should do. But what if instead of looking at prayer as an activity, we looked at it as part of our relationship with God?

Let me give you three of the prayers that I talked about briefly this weekend. I want to give you a little more details, some history even. Most of these prayers are based on ancient practices. If it was helpful to those first Christians, it can probably help us too.

1. Welcoming Prayer

This is a great way to start any prayer time. That’s why it’s called a welcoming prayer. I like to start with a few minutes of silence, and I’ll explain that in a little bit. But the first prayer can be this welcoming prayer.

This is the prayer where we invite God into our presence. Right here and right now. To inhabit the space we’ve created by turning off the phone, shutting down the email notifications, closing the door and getting quiet. We welcome him to show up.

But not just in our prayer time. We also welcome God into our lives. At any and every opportunity, we give him the right to interrupt us, to show us a better path. We invite him to be present in our victories and our failures, our joys and our sorrows. No matter what, we search to find him because we have welcomed him.

Here’s a quick script I like to use:

“Welcome, welcome, welcome.

I welcome everything that comes to me today
because I know it’s for my healing.
I welcome all thoughts, feelings, emotions, persons,
situations, and conditions.
I let go of my desire for power and control.
I let go of my desire for affection, esteem,
approval and pleasure.
I let go of my desire for survival and security.
I let go of my desire to change any situation,
condition, person or myself.
I open to the love and presence of God and
God’s action within. Amen”.

2. Breath Prayer

This is also known as a centering prayer. And it’s older than you and me – combined! In fact, it can be dated all the way back to the 6^th century out in the Syrian desert. Our faith forefathers were using this type of prayer to get closer to Jesus.

Here’s how this one works. Find a comfortable place to sit down and stay calm. No distractions. Close your eyes and remove all tension or thoughts that might bother you. Now, choose a word that you can center on, concentrate your thoughts on. It may be an attribute of God, like “peace” or “love,” or it could be his name. Whatever will help you focus your thoughts. Now, breath in and out as you focus on that word, repeating it if you have to. Your mind may wander, don’t worry. Just return to that word and let your mind center on God again.

At first, this will be very difficult. You’ll find yourself moving from anxious thought to anxious thought. You’ll want to beat yourself up for being so distracted. Don’t, though. Your goal is to do this for 20 minutes, but after the first two you’ll be sure you’ve spent an hour in prayer!

The whole point of the breath prayer is to be in the presence of God. It’s not to ask him for anything or to tell him how great he is. It’s just to be. And our breathing is the best way to come about that.

3. Daily Review Prayer

This one can be done at night or early in the morning. It’s a neat, step by step type of prayer. And it involves you actively asking and listening to God. It’s a way to examine your life. In fact, you may have heard of it by its Latin term, the examen.

There are five steps to this prayer:

1. Acknowledge an awareness of the Divine.
2. Review the day in a posture of gratitude.
3. Recognize a “Consolation” and a “Desolation” from the day.
4. Choose a “Desolation” to pray into.
5. Look with hope for new tomorrow.

Begin by acknowledging God’s presence in your life. Then, go over the major beats of your day, what went right and what may not have. Find both a good and bad thing, a “consolation” and a “desolation.” Pray into the bad thing, asking God to remove it from your shoulders. Then look forward to the next day, or the day ahead, with renewed hope in him.

And that’s it! Very simple, aren’t they? Some of them take time and concentration, sure. But they aren’t impossible. And they can be added to your daily routine pretty easily. All it takes is committing that time and energy. All it takes is practice.