Happenings 26 March 2020

Isn't it great that God has no social distance?! We don't need to keep a safe distance from him or make sure there is a big enough of a buffer zone. He cannot be harmed by us ... we cannot be harmed by him. There is freedom of relationship and freedom of connection. When I was a young man, I moved to Wellington for my first ever job. I didn't know a single person in the entire city; I had no church and for a while, I had no friends. It was an adventure, but it was also at times quite lonely. I read a book during this time - I can't remember what it was called - but it completely changed the way I approached loneliness. The author made the point that loneliness can be 'redeemed' by God and turned into solitude. Loneliness is a negative experience, but understanding that loneliness can be turned into creative solitude was so helpful for me. Author, Joyce Hugget, writes: 'We must reject the idea that aloneness automatically means loneliness. We do not have to suffer loneliness whenever we are by ourselves. Rather than running away from our own company, we will carve out time when we can ‘just be’ alone with ourselves and with Jesus. I am not talking here about our daily times of quiet with God. I am recommending some added extras: leisure time deliberately earmarked “Aloneness” when we seek to discover for ourselves that solitude can be creative;  where we realise that the space inside us is the dwelling place of the most high God who converts our emptiness into fullness.' She goes on and recommends cultivating the art of creative solitude. 'One way to do this is to place a high value on the present: to refuse to live mainly in the future. Loneliness holds us in a vicelike grip when certain uncertainties pound through our brain relentlessly ... we worry, we chafe, we sink into the slough of loneliness and the richness of ‘the now’ passes us by. The neglect of ‘the now’ presses on our existential loneliness and accentuates it. When we discover that the present moment is full of potential beauty, full of potential and profound pleasure, the pressure of loneliness is somehow relieved.' May God in this time do the miracle of transforming our loneliness into life-giving solitude, where the silence is rich with the companionship of God.

In Him,
Murray