Finding God in the Rhythm of Time

The story of Elijah on the run and finding God in quiet ( 1 Kings 19:1-18¹) is a familiar one. Elijah is hiding from Jezabel who has threatened his life. He goes into the wilderness, where he rests and an angel feeds him. Then he travels to Mount Horeb and is told that God is about to “pass by”. Elijah experiences wind, earthquake and fire but God is not in those experiences. God is found in the “sheer silence”.

Often this story is used to support the idea of “quiet time” or silent contemplation as a corrective to our human love of drama and noise. That’s not wrong. God is found in the silence.

There are plenty of Bible stories have God revealing themselves in noisy or dramatic events². God is found in the wind, in thunder, in storms, and in the chaos of the sea. God is in the silence of solitude and also in noise and drama of the world.

Elijah’s story reminds us that God isn’t only in the tumult or commotion of life. God is also present in silence, and in times of rest. There is no place or circumstance where God is not present.³ There is no single way to respond to God’s presence.

 Our challenge and invitation is to open ourselves to the variety of ways God is present and the variety of ways we can respond. We all have our preferred way to encounter God. Some of us value silence. Some of us prefer subdued lights and simple quiet music. Some of us embrace sound from praise bands or organs. Some of us move our bodies. Some sit quietly. Some laugh. Some weep.

One way of worship, one way of encountering God is not better than another. Enlarging our devotional or worship “vocabulary” can be helpful. We need to know how to celebrate and how to lament. And we need to worship faithfully through the ordinary times of life.

This is where the rhythm of the liturgical year can help us. Through the course of the year we intentionally encounter God in various ways, as a community and as individuals. The liturgical calendar has celebrations and festivals. It also has time set apart for quiet reflection, for repentance, for introspection, and for formation. There is time for sorrow and joy. There are stretches of “ordinary time”, the time when nothing special happens. Just as in life, worship has times of routine.

As the liturgical year progresses the liturgy shifts and the prayers change. We sing hymns particular to the season. Visually church banners, paraments and vestments change. The sanctuary may be decorated or not. All these practices help give us a language of prayers, stories, and songs. We are given visual aids, that use colors and images. The liturgical year helps us expand our ways of encountering God. We become fluent in multiple ways to express our faith for the variety of situations life brings.

1. https://bible.oremus.org/?ql=576083908 ↩︎
2. To name a few- The thunder and clouds on Mount Sinai when Moses receives Torah. The parting of the sea. The flood. The fall of the walls of Jericho. The plagues. Not surprisingly there are many dramatic stories in scripture. ↩︎
3. see Psalm 139 for example ↩︎