shut up

i enjoy being a busy person. i love having eighteen things going all at once. (is that a mild form of a.d.d.?) i love cramming a ton of things into my day--kids, work, reading, typing, listening, walking, visiting... God has been teaching me for some time now on prioritizing all those things, that things have to come in a certain order for life to be lived with impact, with abundance. He comes first, my marriage and family second...and everything falls into an order in the list.

lately, God moved things to a slightly deeper level. good that you're getting things in order, but now I need you to shut up. I need you to be quiet, to be still, to listen, to wait. i have to say, i think i may have missed Him asking a few times because of all the noise. so God did what only God can do, He's cleared out some of the 'noise'.

for the past few months, there has been a time of silence in my day--every day. amazing how loud it is. at first, i didn't know what to do. i tried filling the time with activities, i cried, i yelled, i pouted by doing nothing. then...something dawned on me a bit ago--silence is such a gift. God has given me a time of silence each day to simply listen to Him. amazing that once you shift your perspective just a bit what you hear in that silence.

silence allows time to think, to reflect, to examine. it's given me opportunities to look at things in my life that i need to let God work on. it's encouraged me by letting me get away from the world that is spinning like crazy around me and regain perspective. it recharges, renews, refreshes.

been spending some time in psalm 46. go look at it. go to www.biblegateway.com if you don't have a bible and type in 'psalm 46' and see what it says. God uses this amazing contrast--the massive roars and crashes that happen in nature, the roars and yells of civilations as we clash with one another constrasted to His powers and what He can do...and then here's the clincher, it says to BE STILL AND KNOW THAT HE IS GOD. this passage has paragraphs of busy, noisy, overwhelming forces and then you have to be careful not to miss the quiet reminder at the end. don't miss it.

in the middle of the crashes and roars and feuds and battles and noise, God asks us to be still for just a moment and know that He is God. He is giving us a reminder at the end of this passage to make a concerted effort to find a still moment each day and remember who is God, who He is and who is in control.

i'm going to go and savor my small moments of silence today.