Set A Spell

 

On our back porch, two old rockers sit waiting to be occupied, paint peeling and woven seats worn out.  They once belonged to my husband Bill’s great-grandparents.  Just the sight of these rockers carry with them decades upon decades of memories.  

From time before eternity, the rockers sat side by side on his grandmother’s screened porch, always calling to be occupied.  Because on hot steamy southern Alabama evenings after the work of the day ceased, babies still needed to be rocked and stories needed to be told. 

But one of the fondest memories we have was just in the act of rocking side by side with someone, just being together, accompanied only by the evening chorus of crickets and the creak of those old chairs on her ancient porch, generation after generation.

No words necessary.

We think of prayer as lists of requests, coming before Him with our hearts burdened. Prayers indeed are lifted up, but all-too-often stuffed in the cracks of our days, like a hurried cell call, quick before my phone runs out of juice.

And we are the ones who miss out.

God pats the rocker and says, “Come on.  Sit with Me.”  Or as they would say down there on Oma’s porch, “Set a spell.”  Not with a list, but just to sit.  And as we do, we listen.

We discover that the silence is not God’s absence, but His deeper Presence.  He is here after all.  It is not our waiting on Him, but God waiting on us.  We can trust Him with what is going on.   Not with a posture of “What is God teaching me through this?” but, “What is God revealing?”  Two very different questions.

How do we pray differently in those times of rocking side by side?   Listening is a missing element in our conversation. 

The more we sit with Him, the more we listen, and the more we become aware.  I passed another runner the other day.  I lifted a hand in greeting and said good morning.  She kept on running without any recognition of my words or even my being a few feet away from her.  Because with ear buds on, she simply couldn’t hear me. 

Are we blocking out God’s voice?  Are we even listening? 

Are we dwelling in worry…..or rocking with Him?  Not just bringing our concerns to Him, but leaving them there and giving God the elbow room to work.

What do we miss because we don’t set a spell with God?  Influential writer and theologian Henri Nouwen notes:  “…He is the dwelling place where we come to know the true order of things.  Instead of saying, “Nothing matters anymore, since I know that God exists,” the converted person says:  “All is now clothed in divine light and, therefore, nothing can be unimportant.” 

And when we sit a while with Jesus, we hear something new, our hearts are tweaked, and we pray differently.  We catch a glimpse of something new when we listen to God.  Every bit is clothed in His divine light and everything is significant.

When we sit with Him in silence, everything changes.  We don’t just pray differently.  We listen.  We know that He is God.

 

For God alone,

            O my soul,

wait in silence,

for my hope is from Him.

He only

      is my rock and my salvation,

      my fortress.

I will not be shaken.

On God

     rests my salvation and my glory,

                    my mighty rock,

                    my refuge is God.

Trust in Him at all times, O people;

pour out your heart before Him;

God is a refuge for us. 

                                   Selah.

                     Psalm 62. 5-8

 

Selah.

       Set a spell in these words.

       Set a spell with Me.