Be Still And Know...

I was taken aback the other night when I was flipping through the TV channels and happened upon a program about hoarders—people who never throw anything away and slowly become swallowed by mountains of trash in their own homes. The obsessive organizer in me shuddered at the appalling conditions in which these people lived, and it was really difficult for me to understand how they could let their lives get so out of control. But then it occurred to me that physical and material trash isn’t the only thing that can litter my life.

Our pastor has been encouraging us recently to spend time being silent before God. While the concept of spending as much prayer time being quiet and listening as I do making my requests known isn’t new, it’s something I tend to forget when my schedule becomes cluttered with things I deem important. In the past few weeks, I’ve asked God to sharpen my awareness of His voice. I want to be certain that it’s Him I’m hearing and not my own selfish desires or my agenda.

Jesus said in John 8:43, “Why do you not understand my speech? Because you are not able to listen to My word.” How can I understand when God speaks if I’m not familiar with His voice? I can pick out my husband’s voice in a crowd because I know his voice, I love his voice. But thirty-seven years ago, I had to learn every subtle tone and intensity of his voice during our personal times together—just the two of us—before I could detect his voice in the midst of a noisy world.

God invites us over and over in His word to “incline your ear, and come to Me.” Yes, he repeatedly instructs us to heed his Word and listen to Him, but to “incline your ear” means to listen for Him as well. I believe this is what our pastor had in mind when he exhorted us to be silent before God.

Isaiah 55:2 says to listen carefully to God, to eat from His table, to satisfy my thirst from His cup, to delight my soul in His abundance, to listen for Him and come to Him, to hear… and then He adds this promise: "and your soul shall live. I will make an everlasting covenant with you.” A promise that precious takes my breath away—to even imagine that He wants to spend time with me leaves me in awe.

But first I must clear away the clutter, the worries, the fears, the “to do” list, the self-imposed schedules and demands—all those things that heap up around us like trash in a hoarder’s house—and incline my ear to seek God’s voice. My desire is to draw close to Him, to stay within His shadow, and to become so acclimatized to the sound of His voice, that I can pick it out from the cacophony of the world. When God says, “Therefore My people shall know My name; therefore they shall know in that day that I am He who speaks; behold it is I.” (Isaiah 52:6), it is the desire of my heart to instantly recognize God’s voice.

Thanks for letting me share my heart.