The past few weeks have been a bit of a roller coaster for the Saldanha’s. Katie and I both agree that it might have been the hardest couple of weeks of our marriage. The great thing about that is it’s not because of something we did, but just learning how to deal with circumstances. Once God has put a little more shape to this story we’ll be sure to tell it, but for now I’ll continue to be vague.

This past weekend we took three days and headed east to the lovely town of Holland, Michigan to visit the Bishop’s. Becca Wade Barry Bishop is Katie’s best friend from Hope College, and her husband Josh and son Jackson are studs. We had a great time. We also visited Mars Hill Church, home of Rob Bell. This was my fourth visit to Mars Hill without actually hearing Rob speak, but they always have fantastic guest speakers.

This weekend was no exception.

Shane Hipps was visiting from Phoenix, and teaching through spiritual disciplines. This week covered solitude and meditation. For me, this was one of those “we’re just visiting so this won’t really apply to me” mornings. I was wrong.

So wrong, in fact, that God destroyed my heart in the first 15 minutes of the service. We began singing a couple beautiful songs and already I could feel the tears welling up in my eyes. Then the music director read from the Psalms, and the verses spoke to exactly what Katie and I were dealing with. I started to feel that lump in my throat that comes with brokenness.

And then . . . silence.

The music director told everyone to close their eyes and just pray. Whatever was going on, just pray. In that moment, my heart came undone. I cried for two minutes straight, unable to utter a word to God about what I felt and what I needed, but I knew at that moment that He completely understood and was purging all this junk from within me. I hadn’t really dealt with the things that were going on, I just shelved them, said I believed God was good, and moved on. But I never really experienced that truth, I simply knew it.

Shane’s message gave shape to what I was feeling and experiencing the first part of the service. We’re so quick to learn about God, but do we really know Him? I don’t take the time to quiet myself and just experience God. J.I. Packer says that if you don’t experience God, you don’t really know Him. You just know about Him. I so desperately want to know Him.

Our culture is full of distractions, which is why I think both God and the devil don’t do a lot of miraculous stuff around us. We’re sidelined by total crap that is accessible whenever we want it.

We need to learn to be quiet, and then maybe we’ll hear the voice of God that we so desperately long for.