God is always trying to talk to us, says Bishop Hughes, but often we are moving so fast that we don’t catch the message. This Advent, she suggests that we make a practice of setting aside 10 t0 15 minutes to just sit in God’s presence. (Time: 4:55.)
Video Transcript
This is Bishop Hughes in the Diocese of Newark. The time of Advent, the lead up to Christmas, is a time where the church encourages us – everything in the Episcopal Church turns inward for a bit – asking us to think about what is about to happen with Christmas. To think that God came, that God’s very own self came, incarnated, fully human, fully divine, and we celebrate that at Christmas time.
The lead up to it is so full of activity and preparation that often we bypass that chance to be introspective. We are so caught up in our schedules of preparation and all of the ramped-up activities that there are leading into the Christmas celebration, that we have, it seems, very limited time to even figure out where we have to be today, much less to think about what is happening in my life at this moment.
And I want to encourage you to take a little bit of time back. Take it, consider it is your Advent practice, but to take a little bit of time. You decide what time of day. I’m a morning person, so for me, it’s in the morning. Maybe it’s in the morning. Maybe it’s when you do your exercises, when you do the cool down and you’re stretching, etc. Maybe it’s at dinnertime, when you’re, as you’re preparing a meal, or just after a meal. And if you’re an evening person, a nighttime person, maybe it’s after everyone else has gone to bed and you have time to think. But I want to encourage you to take 10 to 15 minutes every day in this lead up to Christmas, just to sit in the presence of God.
You don’t have to accomplish anything. You don’t have to know anything new or special. You don’t have to listen extra hard, but to just present yourself and give yourself a piece of quiet, 10 to 15 minutes to sit in the presence of God. You might actually even say those words. I’m taking these 10 minutes – set your timer if you need to, set a little alarm if you need to. I’m taking these 10 minutes to sit in the presence of God.
There’s different ways to do that. You could light a candle. You could find a word or a phrase that you just want to repeat to yourself and then just sit quietly with it. You might want to read a piece of scripture, or perhaps there’s a prayer that you keep coming back to. You’ve heard me for the last year, constantly returning to the prayer for guidance that’s on page 100 in the Book of Common Prayer. But to take that little piece of time.
Here’s why I encourage it. God is always trying to talk to us. God is always trying to express God’s love and mercy and grace to us, and often, we are moving so fast that we don’t catch the message. That God is in the middle of blessing us, in the middle of letting us know that all is well and that all is being cared for and taken care of, but we’re so caught up in our activity and caught up in this notion that we must handle everything ourselves, and we are so busy trying to get everything done, that we lose sight of always being in God’s presence.
So you don’t – I’m not saying that take those 10 to 15 minutes to conjure up the presence of God. God is always with you. What I am saying is take those 10 to 15 minutes a day so that you have a growing sense that God is always with you. Very often, it is not in the going as fast as we can that we are aware of God’s wisdom and presence. It is when we have that moment of quiet and of stillness, when we can simply be. When we’re not doing or performing or accomplishing or controlling, but we can simply be.
I ask you to try this and know that if you are able to do it at all, even if it’s every other day or it’s once a week, but if you’re able to do this every day, it is going to be a tremendous gift to yourself, from you and from God. Ten to 15 minutes a day, set the timer, and sit in the presence of God.
