I was reminded earlier in the week of how easy it is to miss
what God wants to show us when there is so much noise going on around us. I have a new path in our new neighborhood
that I like to walk and it brings me along a little lake, actually more like a
large pond and one particular morning I was excited to see at least 100 ducks
gathered. As I pushed my little boy in
his stroller towards the ducks, I noticed that his head was turned away, focused
on something else. He seemed fixated on
this giant box covering some sort of filtration system I guess for the lake and
the noise alone, I believe captivated my boy's attention.
Of course! Noise always
trumps the quiet moments, I chuckled in my mind and heard God whisper, “The
same is true with you.”
Do you get distracted with the noise in your life? I do—and noise isn’t always bad, but I do realize that my body craves to get away to the quiet. I recognize that in order to live the life that God wants me to live, I have to get away to the quiet.
It is here in quiet moments I can no longer hide from my thoughts, feelings and circumstances and it is here that I can listen and iron it all out with God.
Having the entire family on vacation, it is so easy for me
to spend 100%
of my time with them. And late nights are just a given, making it harder to get up before the family for some quiet.
Yet, today as I did get
away, I heard loud and clear from God as I saw a hummingbird fly over my head , “Take what you need, so that you may help
others…this is an act of love for all of you.”
As I sat there reading, the hummingbird flew over to a
spider web and pulled off various leaves and debris which looked glued to the
web. A memory came to me of a time being with my boys about 7 years ago...oh look how little they were.
We played around in a creek one late spring and came upon two hummingbirds tending to their nest. I could not see this current hummingbirds nest, but I pictured him having one similar.
God wired this hummingbird like me and you to do certain
things. By these simple acts, the
hummingbird was building a nest and thus helping his young and the hummingbird
by taking what he needed was inadvertently helping this spider clean up his web.
I know, so silly to think about, but isn’t it true?
When we take care of ourselves and receive the love from God
we are much more ready to love those in our lives aren’t we? Life is noisy—we need to cultivate the quiet moments.
This is what I’m striving for in this new year…more quiet moments with God and my best friend Jesus.
With my focus already here and ramping up, ready for the new year; I was so excited
to hear that our home church is going to be studying from the book of John…it
is in this book that I’ve been soaking up more of Jesus. In this book, I feel God gave me a theme
verse for 2012:
“Look for Him to reveal His glory and put your faith in Him.”
John 2:11
Do you have a theme verse?
I’m not suggesting you have to have one, but if you do, share it with
someone…it just might help them focus on Him rather than the noise.
I believe God used this site to give me the idea of a theme
verse for the year and then my pastor’s message sent me reading "the book" in the
quiet.
I’ll stop typing now and give you some space to be quiet
too.
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
2 comments:
Read this at the perfect time today. Was jogging this morning, talking to God, and I couldn't hear him. I was too busy listening to everything else that was in my mind; things I need to get done today. Oh, how I love the ways He tells us to slow down and relish in Him. He is the One that provides everything we need :)
Chris, AMEN to that! He really does go to great lengths to reveal Himself and speak to us and remind us that He is ALL we need. Way to go pounding out your thoughts onto the pavement this morning :)
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