Making Space...

 Posted by Lisa Laree to Beer Lahai Roi

This song has been on repeat since January...so much in it that speaks my heart.

And maybe it explains the last six Wednesday nights.

See, we do small groups at church on Wednesday nights.  Usually 10 weeks in the fall, and 10 weeks in the spring.  I have been teaching a class on some simple Bible study methods; We finished the spring semester on April 19.  But this year, the decision was made to do a 6 week 'minimester' to finish out the spring instead of doing the large group Bible study we have done in the past.  My class wasn't one that was asked to repeat/ continue for the short term, so I kinda was at loose ends to decide what I should do.

I didn't really want to jump into a class that was a continuation of what they'd been doing...and there were only a couple that were starting up new.  One was a marriage class, but I didn't really want to do that without My Sweet Babboo, who works in the boy's ministry on Wednesday nights.  I thought about doing the other, as it was being taught by one of my favorite teachers in our church, but it was material that I'd already covered when I took the ministry school classes.  What to do, what to do.  

Then, the Wednesday the mini-mester started, I had a sudden thought: Why don't I ask God what  I should do?  And then see if I get some kind of direction.

Y'all.  I prayed that little prayer and IMMEDIATELY heard in my spirit, 'Why don't you just spend that time with Me?'

What?  Skip church and come home and just spend the time with Bible and journal?  But even as I thought that I knew it wouldn't work...I had too many distractions.  Too many Things That Need to Be Done.  Well...could I just sit in my office at church and ...nope.  Too Many Things there, too.  But...no one was using the classroom I had been teaching in...

And suddenly, I had an idea for a small group named 'We Make Space -- Spending Time with God' in which we would NOT have a specific group time, per se, but after a quick devotional prompt we could all, like, spread out and turn the desks (it is an old school, and they left us the desks, lol) to the wall and each one spend the time with Bible, journal and Holy Spirit.

I wrote it up really quickly and emailed it to our life group pastors to see if they liked it.  But, I realized it was an extremely short notice...it hadn't been on the sign up lists, there would be no signage made...it wouldn't be easy to pull off.  So, I asked that, if we didn't promote it as a group, would it be ok if I used the classroom for some personal seeking time?

Then I grabbed my Message  Bible, because I wanted a version that I'm not as familiar with (and I'm not a big fan of The Message, but it works for a prayer prompt) so as to not be a routine read, my journal and my little blue tooth speaker and, on a whim, a book that I got a  while back but hadn't really gotten much into, and threw it all in a tote bag and headed for church, not really knowing what was going to happen.  

My hunch was right...there wasn't time for that to be a group, but it was no problem for me to use the room for my own seeking time.

I went up that night during the class time and shut myself into the room, turned on some music rather low so as to mask the conversation from the next room without disturbing them, and opened my books.

The book I'd grabbed at the last minute was  Hebrew Word Study: Revealing the Heart of God by Chaim Bentorah. I had bought it thinking it would be an introduction to Hebrew or some such thing but it wasn't that at all.  It is a collection of articles or devotions based on different Hebrew words or phrases.  I had read a few when the book arrived and had found them thought provoking but hadn't really made an effort to dig into it.  I thought, since it was a devotional style, it might be good for a prayer prompt.

Guys.  Those Wednesday nights were AMAZING.  90 minutes of uninterrupted time with no distractions to focus on personal communion.

I did learn something about Hebrew from that devotional book.  Unlike English, where words are made up of letters representing sounds, Hebrew words are made up of letters representing concepts; the meaning of the word is tied up in the letters used to spell it; the pronunciation follows the spelling, not the other way round.  And most Hebrew words derive from a set of three-letter root words. It's incredibly complex and deeply layered.  So naturally, the words I studied all had much richer meanings than the simple English translation would indicate.

The words inspired journal entries that were conversations...I'd write a bit, then change the color in my four color pen and record the words that came to me as a response.  That is, as you can imagine, deeply personal...but it was inspiring and affirming and challenging and the six Wednesdays went by in a flash.

What I came away with, in a nutshell, is that the heart of God yearns for intimate communion with His people.  One of the words I studied is a word that can be translated 'hug'...and I left the classroom that night with a sense of inner peace the likes of which I don't think I have ever felt before.  It was profound....and it hasn't really left.  It's still there, under the surface. The Father's hug.  If I had gotten nothing else but that, it would still have been an amazing time.

I have to find a way to block out the distractions so I can continue that pursuit at home.

Which was, of course, the whole point of the exercise.  To make space...clear out the clutter...welcome Him...and to get accustomed to doing it so I could continue in less specific circumstances.

There is a PS to this...the small group pastors loved the concept, for all there wasn't time to pull it off this go round, so it will be something that I do with others as an actual group at some point in the future...