This month’s moment is by Bas van der Graaf, a pastor, coach and spiritual director in the Netherlands.

In November, I participated in the Sanctus retreat in Assisi. Much happened to me in the silence, but this one thing was especially true: over the course of the days, I grew to experience the presence of the kingdom of God. Never before had I experienced so strongly what Dallas Willard so often said: God's kingdom is a perfectly safe place to be.

Then came the day I went home and had to break the silence. On the train to Rome, I turned my phone back on, and a series of challenging emails poured in from the missionary organization I work for. Emails about an insufficient budget, about a team expansion that couldn't go ahead. Stress immediately hit me. The safety of the kingdom seemed very distant.

I decided to put my phone aside and first become silent again. I prayed that the reality of the kingdom would also be tangible that day in the chaos that awaited me. I became silent, meditated on what was happening in my body, wrote some things down, and then threw myself into the emails and phone calls. And the miracle happened: I felt safe in the storm all day long. I received exactly the right thoughts, spoke to exactly the right people, and after a few hours, I was able to put my phone down again. Enough for the day.

In the days that followed, I had many meetings and quickly had to rewrite our department's annual plan. Even during these meetings, I was able to work from a place of calm, but connections were also made that I hadn't imagined myself. And above all: with a very clear inspiration about the vision from which we could move forward, I rewrote the annual plan in an hour and a half. It was truly a miracle.

Since Assisi, I understand the secret much more deeply: the kingdom of God is a perfectly safe place to be. And spiritual exercises help us to enter that place.