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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.

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