Episode #314 Quiet Time with God Can be Loud – Unforced Rhythms of Grace

Hey friends, it's Jen. Welcome to this episode of Good God Talks. We're still talking about the discipline of celebration. And if that is a new idea to you, I encourage you to jump back to episodes before this one, that's when we started talking about celebration as a discipline.

And today we're talking about sharing an exhilarating or loud experience with God and personally, I love this one because as a mom with two young boys, my home is normally very loud. The only reason it's not right now is, one, I'm recording and two, my boys are at school. But when they're home, there is always noise and activity and quick movements happening all over my house. One of my kiddos is definitely a runner! And so this idea of sharing loud experiences with God has been something that's present in my life for a number of years now, because my house is loud. And so I want to invite God into daily life with me and so this concept of experiencing loud moments as shared moments with God makes a lot of sense for me in my life season.

I'm rereading Richard Foster's book, the Celebration of Discipline, and he talks about the benefit of celebration and how it saves us from taking ourselves too seriously and how there's this hesitancy amongst those who are in the church and who are spiritual to become kind of stuffy bores. But as those who are empowered by God, we get to be the most free and the most alive and the most interesting.

And he gives the example that Jesus rejoiced in life so fully that he was accused of being a glutton and Foster goes on to say, “Now I am not recommending a periodic romp in sin, but I am suggesting that we do need deeper, more earthy experiences of exhilaration. It is healing and refreshing to cultivate a wide appreciation for life. Our spirit can become weary with straining after God just as our body can become weary with overwork. Celebration helps us relax and enjoy the good things of the earth.”

Now I find that insight really refreshing and even the parallel he makes: Our bodies can get weary with overwork, and so our spirits can become weary with straining after God only. We are not created to only work out our salvation. As Jesus transforms us as we are transformed and renewed by the power of the Holy Spirit, God working in us. We get to engage in moment-by-moment life with him, and that includes celebrating and relaxing and resting in his presence. We get to be those who enjoy life with God, not only straining after him, but enjoying his company.

It makes me think of the verse that talks about how a joyful heart is good medicine and how God gives that to us out of relationship with him, and we just talked about that one in the very last episode.

Foster also says that, “Another benefit of celebration is its ability to give us perspective. We can laugh at ourselves.”

He points out that, “What do little children do when they celebrate? They make noise, lots of noise. There is not a thing wrong with noise at the appropriate time, just as there is nothing wrong with silence when it is appropriate. Children dance when they celebrate.”

There are times when we are still before the Lord and there are other times like:

1. Psalm 47:1
“Clap your hands, all you nations; shout to God with cries of joy.”

2. Psalm 150:4–6
“Praise him with tambourine and dancing, praise him with the strings and pipe, praise him with the clash of cymbals, praise him with resounding cymbals. Let everything that has breath praise the LORD.”

3. Psalm 98:4
“Shout for joy to the LORD, all the earth, burst into jubilant song with music.”

These are embodied acts of worship that are loud and exhilarating. Something that we have started doing every so often as a family is we do praise parties. Because when my kids want to celebrate, they want to move around. They jump, they shout, they dance, they scream, and so we'll put on a worship song and as a family we'll just dance around to it.

For years, I have experienced that quiet times are not always quiet. And that's okay. I have quiet times with God and I have loud times with God too loud 'cause my kids are around. Or loud because I am loud. Because I am singing to him or I am dancing before him, or I am shouting in worship before him.
We can come before God in all sorts of ways. My invitation for each of us today is to come exuberant before him and to engage in a moment of celebrating God. Who he is, what he's done, who you are in him, how he loves you.

And so here's a question you can ask him to see what he might prompt you to do today:

God, what's one way I can celebrate you loudly today?

Have a good talk.

And if you've been encouraged by this content, please share it with a friend and help them grow in their conversational relationship with God too!

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