Skip to main content

Listen closely

Silence... nothing but the sound of the wind moving through the trees. It almost brings tears to my eyes. Solitude.. Time alone and still to clear my mind and the highway traffic of thoughts. How good it is to sit quietly and hear the nothing of a place untouched by the business of life. I see the waves of the wind move through the branches as they ebb and flow from one part of the world to the next.

"Be still and know that I am God." (Ps. 46:10)

There is a reason He wrote those words. We need that time of stillness to feel the breathe of God flow back into our lives. The lights and sounds and excitement of the fast paced life can be alluring. As a teenager I didn't understand the need to stop and be still. Why not keep going? Why not  move as fast you can and always have noise and always fly from the one exciting event to the other? I had not found the beauty in the stillness of nature. The way the voice of God whispers to you there.

Elijah was weary of his rushed and worrisome life (for those who don't know his story, he had the leader of the nation attempting to have him murdered). He needed reassurance. So God told him to go up a mountain and wait there, for He was about to pass by. There was then a violent wind so strong that it destroyed part of the mountain but God was not in that violent wind. There was then an earthquake, but that still wasn't God's main message to Elijah. Next came a fire, hot and miserable, but Elijah still waited for the presence of God. Finally there came "a gentle whisper" and that... that quiet, soft, barely audible sound, that was God. (Paraphrased from 1 Kings 19:10-13)

Chaos, confusion, turmoil--all things not at all a part of God's nature are loud. Loud drowns out the quiet. And if you are constantly surrounded by the loud and never seek the quiet, how could you hear Him?
Where is your place of stillness? Where do you feel the peace that surpasses all understanding? Find it. Find that place where you can be quiet and where you can silence the jabbering in your mind. Go there often... at least once a week (Sabbath, anyone?). For He designed us to appreciate the beauty of stillness and He wired us to need it.

I listen to the sound of the water and my soul sighs. How good it is to be in the presence of the Lord.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Because of great empathy, Jesus wept

John 11: 32-33&35 "Now when Mary came to where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet, saying to him, 'Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.' When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in his spirit and greatly troubled. Jesus wept." As I was reading through this chapter and familiar story, I was suddenly struck with the depth of this particular part of the story. Jesus, being God, knew that He was about to raise Lazarus from the dead. Not only that, but a few verses earlier, He even told His disciples what He was about to do. The death of Lazarus was not news to Jesus--nor, in my mind, do I imagine a very troubling thought to Him since He knew what was about to happen. So then, why did He weep? Why was He greatly troubled? Because He saw the deep pain of His friends. His empathy was SO great that even knowing what was about to happen He still wept with His friends. "Fo...
1 comment
Read more

Life in a seed

I wasn't a science major but if I understand the very basic reproduction cycle of a plant it goes something like this... An adult tree has these beautiful flowers which bees are attracted to. These bees shake the pollen into the "ovary" of the plant for fertilization. The fertilized plant embryo (with the proper care and nutrition) blossoms into a delicious fruit. Inside that fruit there is a seed, and that seed can be planted into the ground to grow another adult tree. Question... Is there life in the seed? Is the seed valuable of its own accord? Two adults who fell in love and were married. The male adult "pollinated" so to speak, the female adult, thereby creating an embryo. Already equipped with its own little beating heart, this little embryo (whom I believe was 7 or 8 weeks at that moment) grew into a fetus with the proper care and nutrition. At halfway (20 weeks) through the pregnancy, the baby looks like this picture above. She already ...
1 comment
Read more

I'm Not Losing Me

I had a bad day yesterday. You know the one—a handful of little aggravating circumstances that haven’t seen results yet topped with a new unforeseen unfortunate circumstance and I broke... big, hard sobs that I had to run and stifle lest I terrify my children. My bed was my place of comfort until I could cry no more. God, where are you? My heart cried. Silence I know the right answers, the right Scriptures, the right attitudes; but at that moment I was broken—my shield and sword no longer defending but laid aside next to my crumbled self. Depression’s ugly face taunted me and tempted me to let him hold my hand. This foe whom I hadn’t seen in a long time was here again waiting for me to decide whose side I was really on. God, why won’t you just miraculously fix this growing lists of challenges I’m facing? Haven’t I tithed faithfully and given offerings? Haven’t I prayed, and fought with Scriptures, and served You? Why am I in this spot?! The vision of Peter ...
1 comment
Read more