We are so quick to interrupt our own lives.
What DO we want to hear from God? We even put that in a box and frame his answers, give him a timeline and a set of expectations. We don’t listen to God with the intent to understand, be taught and led, surprised and challenged.
While in the background, in the silence, in his presence, God is speaking.
Powerful, two minute reads that have helped change the script in thousands of people's lives.
The solution is something counterintuitive. Rather than leaving all the noise behind, we must learn how to listen through it to hear him. Not many of us can quit our jobs and go to a ten day silent retreat, and yet within our noisy lives, we can learn to find the silence in the middle of it all.
Make a choice to be here now. With all of life raging around, be still and be present and aware of God in the middle of it all.
A scene from an old TV show comes to mind: the “cone of silence” from “Get Smart.” Life still goes on around us, but we find a way to give the divine our full attention.
It's difficult. That's why it's a choice, a deliberate act to listen for God in the midst of it all.
Busyness, chores, the must do’s, the bills, the not enough… even the hopes and dreams, the success of today and plans for tomorrow, can distract our inner ear from hearing his voice; the Divine whispering, speaking, shouting himself into our lives with presence.
“Taking your children to school and kissing your wife goodbye. Eating lunch with a friend. Trying to do a decent day's work. Hearing the rain patter against the window. There is no event so commonplace but that God is present within it, always hiddenly, always leaving you room to recognize him or not to recognize him, but all the more fascinatingly because of that, all the more compellingly and hauntingly. . . If I were called upon to state in a few words the essence of everything I was trying to say both as a novelist and as a preacher, it would be something like this: Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery that it is. In the boredom and pain of it no less than in the excitement and gladness: touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it because in the last analysis all moments are key moments, and life itself is grace.” Frederick Buechner.
Just listen.
God is speaking to you smack bang in the middle of your own life.
Written by Liz Milani
“God is speaking to you smack bang in the middle of your own life.” Thank you Lizzy. I just read this today from Frederick Buechner.
“It is as impossible for man to demonstrate the existence of God as it would be for even Sherlock Holmes to demonstrate the existence of Arthur Conan Doyle.
All-wise. All-powerful. All-loving. All-knowing. We bore to death both God and ourselves with our chatter. God cannot be expressed but only experienced.
In the last analysis, you cannot pontificate but only point. A Christian is one who points at Christ and says, “I can't prove a thing, but there's something about his eyes and his voice. There's something about the way he carries his head, his hands, the way he carries his cross—the way he carries me.”
I'm in a condition : ” List my questions and even put that in a box and frame his answers, give him a timeline and a set of expectations.” How dare I am!
And thankyou Lizzy, this article is one of His answer to me. Jesus bless you
Thank you Yessi – all our love to you!
Jesse (and Lizzy)
In the middle of it all…I hear you Lord