Clearing A Space

Most visitors to the office suite where I work find the watercolor painting that hangs in our conference room to be off-putting. It depicts an old county prison, viewed from the cemetery of a neighboring church. Ominous tombstones stand guard as silent sentinels outside the prison’s walls, while thick black smoke billows from the prison’s chimney into a sky already choked with dark clouds.

"The Old Montgomery County Prison from St. John's Graveyard"
by: W.L. Zeigler

Imagine the surprise of those who comment on the painting when I respond that it portrays my favorite spot in town. That little cemetery, tucked away behind an empty church and an abandoned prison, is a lush patch of green in the mostly gray city-scape of Norristown, Pennsylvania. Sunlight filters through the rustling leaves of the cemetery’s large shade trees. Shadows dance across the plot’s mossy grass and grave markers. Birds find sanctuary in the canopy above, singing in delight after finding a place to roost that’s not made of brick or stone. It is a peaceful place that’s surprisingly full of life.

St. John's Episcopal Church Graveyard - P.W. Newcomer

On particularly stressful days in the office, I make a habit of taking a break to get up from my desk, leave my office building, and walk around the corner to that old cemetery. There I gather myself, I pray for wisdom, courage or patience, and sometimes I just listen. Those little walks do so much more to change the trajectory of my day than another cup of coffee or a snack that I don’t really need.

My walks to the Saint John’s Church cemetery came to mind when I was reading a sermon my father preached entitled “Clearing a Space.” In that message, Dad asserted that the exhaustion and stress that so many of us experience goes much deeper than a time management problem. “It is a spiritual problem with a spiritual solution. The place to begin is to understand that God is the one who renews. This reorientation of our lives is not something we can engineer or empower. True spiritual renewal begins with God. 

What do we have to do? We must clear a space in our lives and give God a chance to do his thing. Spiritual growth is not so much what we do as it is what God does in us when we give God the opportunity.

The classic spiritual disciplines of prayer and meditation are the tried and true means of clearing a space for God in our cluttered lives. Prayer and meditation over God’s word help us to put the nitty-gritty of our lives in perspective, to spend more time on what is important and less time on the less important.

However, we must be careful because prayer itself, if done in the wrong way, can be just another thing to do in an already over-crowded schedule. It can become a way of keeping God out rather than letting Him in. We discover this when we come to realize, at what is a rather advanced stage of Christian maturity, that prayer is primarily listening to God. Soren Kierkegaard once said, ‘A man prayed, and at first he thought that prayer was talking. But he became more and more quiet until in the end he realized that prayer is listening.’

It is so helpful (and I urge you to try this) to create in the course of your busy day, while you’re walking down the hall or driving in your car, little windows to God, not telling him anything, but just consciously giving him room to shed his light, his perspective on what’s going on right now in your life. Just pause and remember that God is there; listen. How can God ever speak just to you if you never allow yourself to be alone, listening for him?

Of course, the spaces we create for God in the course of the day do not in themselves produce change; they only provide the place where change can occur. In the end it is up to us to say ‘yes’ to the God who confronts us in those spaces, to say ‘yes’ and accept his Lordship, not only over the spaces, but over all of life that lies between the spaces. When we do that, slowly but surely, we will find life changing for us. Old desires will diminish in intensity. New interests and activities will replace them. Life will become more relaxed, more purposeful, deeply satisfying.  The dreariness of the treadmill will be replaced by the excitement of running a race, and we will give others the gift of our time instead of feeling that they are ‘taking our time.’

Best of all, God will be an immediately present personal reality rather than an indistinct figure on the back shelf of our mind. I invite you to clear a space here and there in your busy life, then step back and be amazed at what God will do with it.”

From: "Clearing A Space"

Scripture: Luke 10:38-42

Preached at Paoli U.M. Church