Practiced the Pause
What DID Jesus DO?
It was Christmas 1986.
Like most '80s kids whose moms cut their hair, I looked like a bowl had been placed on my head and cut around. And, the bangs…eek.
Like all the other pre-teen kids in America, my brother and I were up and out of bed before the crack of dawn waiting for our parents to give us the green light to leave our rooms and check out our loot under the Christmas tree.
When we raced to the tree, it became painfully obvious that I had fewer presents than my brother. At seven, I didn’t understand the value of a dollar and still judged our presents on how many we had versus the cost of each.
My dad is notorious for Christmas hoaxes. I’ve told the story before of his drywall bead Christmas tree covered in wrapping paper he made the year he and my mom didn’t want to wrap our presents. Then, there was the year that he put a piece of firewood in my brother’s RC car box and wrapped it up for him. My favorite, though, is still the year that he wrapped a Corvette key chain up for my brother and convinced him his present was in the car hauler in our driveway. It was. But, it was a recliner for his apartment and not a Corvette.
At seven, I was not yet intimately familiar with my dad’s antics.
Soon after we opened our gifts, my parents made some comment about going to the dining room for breakfast–which was bizarre because the only time we ate in the dining room was on Thanksgiving.
There, behind the dining room table was a garbage-bag-covered motorcycle, my garbage-bag-wrapped motorcycle, as it turned out.
I loved that little motorcycle, and I rode it around our yard so much that I had a path worn around the perimeter of our property. I was both fearless and fiercely independent on that little blue 50 cc bike.
When I was a few years older, I inherited my brother’s dirtbike.
To say that I thought I was “the stuff” is an understatement.
The problem with the dirtbike was that it required me to manually shift gears–unlike my little blue motorcycle, and there was nowhere on our hilly property where I could learn to shift. My dad took me to my aunt and uncle’s field below our house where he would stand 100 yards away from me and drop his arm when it was time to shift until I learned to hear and feel it for myself.
As soon as I learned how to shift, I took off.
I rode the wheels off that dirtbike, gained even more confidence and independence, and fully believed I didn’t need anyone or their guidance when it came to riding in that field.
The problem with the field was that there was a creek that ran the length of it–cutting it in half. And, part of the bank had eroded away in one spot, a spot I didn’t see on one particular day when I was in the field with my brother and one of his friends–no adults, of course, cause it was the 80s! I had the throttle completely open and was flying along the bank of that creek when I hit that giant crater.
I don’t remember what happened; I just remember opening my eyes on the ground, my helmet beside me, my front tooth chipped, and my brother’s buddy standing over me.
My parents were less than thrilled with my fierce independence, recklessness, and inability to assess my surroundings before barreling full bore ahead without taking the time to consider my surroundings.
While I’m sure the ideal result of this experience would be that I have slowed down, constantly assess my surroundings, pause before making all major decisions, and never run full steam ahead, this isn’t a movie, and, sadly, these things still get me in trouble from time-to-time.
Seeking Guidance
We’ve been working through the book of Luke to study what Jesus did during his time here on earth. Today’s narrative from Luke 6 seems so simple, but if you’re anything like me, then it can be challenging to put this into practice in your own life. This story follows the story we talked about last week detailing the time Jesus was preaching in the Synagogue on the Sabbath and healed the man with the deformed hand–much to the Pharisees’ dismay. Luke tells us:
After leaving the synagogue, Jesus went into the high hills to spend the whole night in prayer to God. At daybreak, he called together all of his followers and selected twelve from among them, and he appointed them to be his apostles. Luke 6:12-13 TPT
These two verses seem so simple–Jesus went to the hills alone to pray through the night, and then he returned the next day and chose his apostles. It’s easy to miss the weight of what happened here and the example Jesus is setting for us.
There’s this common theme we see throughout Jesus’s life and ministry here on earth, and that is the consistent practice of Jesus removing himself from the throngs of people who surrounded him to sit in quiet, rest, and solitude with his Father, seeking God’s direction.
Because we know who Jesus’s 12 apostles were, it’s easy to overlook the fact that this was a major decision Jesus had to make. He had a multitude of followers and disciples at the time, and he was going to choose 12 out of that multitude to be his apostles–the people who would spread the gospel with him as opposed to simply learning from him.
Jesus separated himself from all of these disciples and followers to go into the hills to spend the entire night in prayer to God before he made this important decision.
The entire night.
He didn’t just run full speed ahead and choose hastily.
He spent the entire night in prayer to God seeking guidance and ensuring he was choosing the people God wanted him to choose.
I wonder how that conversation went. I wonder if the human side of Jesus was like, “Judas, really? Are you sure? And, Peter? He’s kind of a hot-head…”
Regardless of how that dialogue went, by the time Jesus came off that hillside in the morning, he knew the 12 God wanted to be chosen for his apostles.
I don’t know about you, but sometimes I struggle to even spend five minutes in quiet with God when I have a decision to make, let alone the entire night. And if I’m being completely honest, it’s more the times when I’m struggling, facing chaos, dealing with a problem, or in the middle of trauma that I slow down enough to legitimately spend more than five minutes sitting with God.
Practicing the Pause
It’s been over 30 years since my dirt bike fiasco, and I still have the bad habit of running full speed ahead with the throttle wide open. I’m still independent to a fault, and I still struggle at times to practice the pause in my life.
The more I think about this example Jesus set for us here, the more I believe that, in reality, this should be one of the easier things for us to implement in our lives. It doesn’t require us to get out of our comfort zones, to love on our enemies, or to even interact with anyone else.
No, it simply requires us to be still in God’s presence and seek his guidance.
For some reason, though, this proves to be incredibly challenging for so many of us, doesn’t it?
We want the advice and approval of others instead of seeking God’s guidance.
We focus on what others think we should do instead of what God is calling us to.
We want to do it ourselves.
We want to make our own plans and our own decisions.
We want a decision right now instead of waiting on God’s timing.
I don’t know about you, but I’ve definitely seen how those things can get me in trouble in my life. That trouble looks different for all of us, but some of my biggest stressors in life came from listening to what other people thought I should do or could do. Instead of pausing in God’s presence and listening to his guidance, I tended to do what other people wanted me to do, and it was terrible.
Much of my deconstruction and reconstruction centered around those idea of selflessness, service, and earning my worth that I was taught from the earliest age. For so many years, the church was one of the worst places for me in terms of running full speed ahead, always saying yes, and never pausing to hear what God wanted me to do and where he wanted me to serve.
That was something I had to do so much work with, and it’s still something I can find myself struggling with at times. What I’ve learned the hard way is that just because I can do something doesn’t always mean God is leading me toward doing that thing.
Now, I’m trying to practice the pause and sit in God’s presence before I volunteer, make commitments, and serve.
It doesn’t just happen in the church, though. It happens everywhere:
In our jobs.
In our families.
In our friend groups.
In our kids’ sports teams.
In our volunteer work.
In our homes.
In our finances.
We can learn so much and save ourselves so much stress and heartache by practicing the pause and sitting still in God’s presence instead of barreling full steam ahead.
Seeking God in our Decisions
Seeking God in our decisions requires us to be still, to have faith that God will answer us, and then to trust the answer God gives. It asks that we go to God before we go to others, that we listen to that still small voice more than we listen to the louder voices around us.
And, it can be really hard to force ourselves to be still, to have patience, and to trust that process.
So many of the things we see Jesus doing in the scriptures are external–healing, preaching, challenging traditions, shifting paradigms–but this practice is completely internal. It isn’t about something we should be doing as we interact with others; it’s a guiding principle for our lives and our relationship with our Father.
Friend, I hope, like me, you are challenged to practice the pause, to sit in the stillness of God’s presence, and to seek his guidance when you are faced with challenging situations, big decisions opportunities to serve, etc.. I pray that you can feel the nudge of the Father and hear the whisper of guidance that will surely come when you seek his face and his will.
Reflection Questions:
How well do you practice the pause before you make a decision or agree to do something?
What is the biggest challenge for you when it comes to sitting still in God’s presence?
What is something you’re dealing with right now that you need God’s guidance with?
Love this story and how you applied it to living the Christian life. I'm glad you survived the dirt bike incident. Could have been a lot worse than a chipped tooth!