Deliberate Listening

 The trickle-splash of water on water meets my ears, and I've found a momentary place of rest amid all the world-chaos, and I tell my soul to be still...

It's gotten somewhat overwhelming of late - all the fears and panic of others finding their way to me as I somehow appear to them to be rational when all I'm really trying is to manage my own feelings and yet, here they all come, beating a path to my proverbial door and asking for a word of hope...all the while caught in a net of their own worries and whatever word I give them seems to go right by them...and I, for one, feel the need to step away. To regroup. To get control of myself so I can keep on living in the spirit I feel called to live. 

It's become more apparent than ever to be just how much we're all governed by fear. Fear of the future, fear of the past, fear of the present, fear of failure, fear of rejection, fear of everything. And out of those fears we speak to each other and induce more fear because we're focused on our problems more than on the One who alone can deliver. I've been saying it daily - posting it everywhere: fear is contagious but so is faith. 

And why are we so apt to get wrapped up in this jumble of feelings when Christ Himself has stated clearly, "...I have overcome the world"? 

When there is clearly a Sovereign God who rules and reigns, why is it that we can forget everything we know about that truth when a moment of crisis hits? 

Sitting at the pool-side of this fountain of peace, I reach a place in the book I'm reading where the author speaks about silence. About stillness. About sweet harmony in the rhythms of Love...

Yes...solitude is where it begins, isn't it? If you haven't learned how to hear that gentle Voice above all other voices, if you haven't disciplined yourself to create space for God to operate and surprise you, if you haven't protected your place of peace in a fallen world gone mad, you will go mad too. 

I'm realizing that living in Grace can't happen when you only leave minimal time for God to get through to you. When you've allowed the noise to take over and the demands to encroach and the pressures to grow, you lose sight of your center and the one space in which you can ground yourself in the ever-shifting sands of change. As the culture gets louder, more adamant, more forceful, you have all the more reason to build into your day these moments of nothing where God can show you everything - can reveal your own heart, can showcase His love, can point out His truth, can comfort you with His presence. 

Fresh air comes into my lungs that have lately shallow-gasped for the Spirit's peace. It's the first time in days I feel I've had a deep breath. And I close my eyes and focus on letting the tension out. I feel the tightness in my shoulders. I still hear all the incoming distractions talking in my head. And I'm sure you know what it feels like also. 

This is a moment in which I must deliberately listen. Must ask God what He wants to say. Must tune it all out and reclaim lost inner territory. And I'm seeing it clear...

If you want to survive all this wild, you have to be intentional. Intentional about prayer. Intentional about quiet. Intentional about God. 

Because this world isn't stopping. It never will. There will always be pushing, running, hustling, constant motion. 

And you can't live out His plan or know His purpose if you don't sit with Him. Don't regularly exit the circus of life and get away to just...be. 

God will not be stopped but He can be limited by our lack of faith. Our confining beliefs about Him and about His ever-continuous purposes can restrain the release of His power in our lives and the opening up to mind-blowing mercies He wishes to bestow. When all you're looking at is the storm, when all you're focused on is your personal conclusions about what is happening in your life, you are likely missing out an indescribable peace, a calm in the chaos that God wants to give you. 

It's not that it can't be found or experienced - but He can't give it you in its fullest measure if you're caught in your own confusion and anxiety. If you aren't seeking out a time and space to remind yourself of all the things that are true...if you aren't studying the character of God...if you aren't hearing what He's got to say to you and about you...if you aren't creating room for Him to work...that's when it all goes wrong. That's when you can lose your way. 

Setting the book aside, I open the palms of my hands and turn my face toward the sun. Toward His Son. The Sun of my soul. Fragments of worship lines run through my mind, and I hear these words being poured over my heart...

"Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of His glory" (Isaiah 6:3).

"O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is Your name in all the earth!" (Psalm 8:9)

"Be still, and know that I am God; I will exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth." (Psalm 46:10)

Suddenly, the feverish pitch of all the world's necessities and demands, all the fears and cries of those who fail to gaze on Him...all of it starts to fade away. Because He is God. And this is the Father's world "for from Him and through Him and for Him are all things" (Rom. 11:36). And if I really believe He can do anything - if I really choose to trust that the same God who calmed the raging seas with one word of "Peace!" can do it all over again today - then what is there to fear? What is there to question? What is there to panic over? 

Because all worry is simply a failure to rest in the capability of God. 

Time spent in quiet with the Maker gives a restless soul strength to draw on. Gives it the Living Water it so deeply craves. Helps it refocus on the one thing necessary: to glorify and enjoy Him forever. 

So leave it to Him to run the world. He already does, and He's fully able. That's why He's God and we're not. And tell your agitated heart to come back to where it belongs - in the Father's love, fully satisfied and fully at peace.