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Key Bible Verse: "When you pray, go away by yourself, shut the door behind you, and pray to your Father secretly" (Matthew 6:6). Bonus Reading: Psalm 63:1—8

If we really believe that God is actively present in our lives—healing, teaching, and guiding—we need to set aside time from our preoccupied lives to give Him our undivided attention. If we don't pause to listen to Him, we aren't taking the spiritual life seriously.

But when we've eliminated outer distractions—people to talk with, books to read, tv to watch, or phone calls to make—we feel uneasy. That's because those outer distractions have shielded us from interior noises—doubts, anxieties, fears, bad memories, unresolved conflicts, angry feelings, and impulsive desires—that now surface in full force. We're bombarded by these thoughts and feelings that emerge from hidden areas of our mind. They can be so unsettling that we can hardly wait to get busy again!

Five or ten minutes a day may be all the solitude we can tolerate at first. It seems so contrary to our desires that we're constantly tempted to run away from it. One way of running away is daydreaming or simply falling asleep. But when we stick to our discipline, convinced that God is with us even when we don't yet hear Him, we slowly discover that we don't want to miss our time alone with God.

—Henri Nouwen in Making All Things New

My Response: Am I uncomfortable with prolonged silence? Why or why not?

Thought to Apply: Everybody else is noisier than God. —EUGENE PETERSON (pastor, educator, writer)

Adapted from Making All Things New (HarperSanFrancisco, 1981) by permission.

Prayer for the Week

If I'm to really meet with You daily, Lord, I need to create space for that encounter. Please show me how.

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