{{2014_08_04_t1.jpg}} {{2014_08_04_t2.jpg}} {{2014_08_04_t3.jpg}} [[http://www.jesusnetwork.eu/de/doku.php/jn_de_2014_08_04|Deutsche Version]] [[Start|| Wiki Start]] [[topics_collection_vi|| Topics Collection vi ]] ======Silence III ...====== Monday, Aug 4, 2014. Did you have had holiday this year already? Most of us have some time where they can take time out. They have two or even three weeks of holiday time to go into some different environment, stop to work and do something else. Holiday is important! {{2014_08_04.jpg }} **The Sunday often does not do it ...** The bible asks us to hold the Sunday. We are asked to take one day a week to leave our normal activities, and be there only with God. That is an important time each weak. For active Christians it is a threatened time as well, since we take responsibility for our worship services, we are active with music or preaching, with leading a service, with providing coffee or food, with teaching and taking care of youth groups and much more. But taking care is not taking time off. Being active again in a responsible manner is not taking a break! We do not get into full synchrony with the Lord when we are fully busy with serving him! Silence, a real break, a real time-out. is very important But what about holidays? Do you have time to really retract during your holidays? When you have a family with kids, holidays are usually shaped by the family. It might be a time-out, but it is one which, at the same time, means continuing responsibility. Try to have times, where you do not take care of anything! Try to take time, where you go to the Lord, and do not waste it with television or other things which just fill it up again! {{ 2014_08_04_2.jpg}} **Do not fill it with stupid things! ...** > It is so easy to fill our time with stupid things. For each individual that might be something different. To me, it is the internet, with all its news sites, with all the programming blogs, with a lot of material from friends, family and colleagues. What is it that you tend to do to fill your time? There used to be a time when I spend my Sundays with watching DVDs. That is quite nice, and I now have a large collection of DVDs in my living room. But it is a waste of time as well. If I just take half an hour to be with the Lord, to talk to him, and to listen - that changes my day, and it changes the following days as well. The Lord is great, he is the living saviour, the living master of this world, and his presence will change us, every time when we sincerely search him! So it is not that our silence is meant to be completly empty. We are not following a religion which wants to completely empty us from everything. But we follow the Lord, who wants to fill us with his love, with his ideas, with his truth and his presence. So it is the question of WHAT we are filled with. Silence means to become open to be changed and filled by HIM. It can be an intense time of communication ... a topic to talk about in more depth! (Roland Potthast) [[http://www.jesusnetwork.eu/en/doku.php/topics_collection_vi|... more texts]]