"For you we will wait all the day long"

One more entry tonight before I go to bed. We had an awesome encounter with God this week when our class was led by a guest speaker named Steve Smith who spoke on the Biblical mandate and model for a Sabbath (which means "cease"), and our desperate need for silence and solitude in God's presence. He shared how we are created to be 6:1 people. That is, we are designed for a full day of "Cease" in every 7 day cycle. We worked from scripture to see how God not only commanded us to this but how both the Father and the Son modeled it for us. Connected with this was the idea of silence and solitude and how we must create space in our lives for God to speak. So often our prayer times, and life in general for that matter, are consumed by the noise of our own voice and thought and the distraction and noise of life being lived. But, God desires space to speak into that and we must nurture sensitivity to His voice by intentionally carving out silence and solitude.

I cannot tell you how deeply I was drawn to his message. My soul resonated with what he was saying. It was as if God put His hand on my shoulder throughout that entire day and said "Scott, please listen to this. Know that I want this desperately for you." It was so life giving to be freed towards intentional rest. To know that God never wants us to burn out but rather wants to fuel us through time apart with Him.

Steve and his wife Gwen run a retreat center called Potter's Inn where they work with people on the concept of Soul Care and today Kel and I had a chance to go out, tour their property, talk more with them about what they do, and then walk their grounds having a time of prayer and conversation both with each other and with God. It was wonderful and our hope is to definitely come back at some point in the future to sit with the Smiths and spend some time at their retreat. I really feel like I could go on and on about this but you should probably just listen for yourself. The sound quality isn't great, and the first and last hour of the session are missing, but check out his messages by clicking on the links below (someone in our class recorded it and I've posted them below.)

Steve Smith on Sabbath
Steve Smith on Soul Care