Journal the Journey

“This is what the Sovereign Lord, the Holy One of Israel, says: Only in returning to Me and resting in Me will you be saved. In quietness and confidence is your strength. But you would have none of it.” – Isaiah 30:15 (NLT)

I sat here in silence staring at my computer screen, waiting for at least one word to come to me before I began my timer and put my fingers in motion. I sat here for quite a while, and it was uncomfortable because such ceasing of distractions is hard to come by these days. As my prolonged stillness began to unsettle me, I thought of how this is my first moment to be in quietness since this morning. All day long has been busy with parenting, working, cooking, all good things and all things that keep quietness at a distance.

Then the verse up there came to mind. Quietness is a discipline that God has graciously revealed to me in prior weeks as a “needs improvement” area of my life. Even my time alone with God in the mornings was not quiet, as I always had worship music playing. The day He revealed to me that He wants to teach me on being still, on embracing silence instead of being bored by it or fearing it, is the day I turned off the worship music. Just like with parenting, working, and cooking, worship music is a good thing but a thing that kept quietness at a distance.

As I am becoming more intentional at carving out time to sit in silence and put all my effort on focusing on only God, I am finding that the flesh hates it. It is hard. My carnal nature is rebelling against this. It isn’t natural to want to sit in silence and to explain to your many different thoughts bouncing around in your head that they’ve got to be still. This is part of walking out the command by Jesus that I “take up my cross,” though it seems so puny in comparison to the cross Jesus bore for me and for you. Yet I know God is requiring this of me because He wants to grow me and He wants to meet with me. He wants to take me into deeper knowledge of the unfathomable mysteries of Him. And though my flesh is weak, in my weakness He is strong.

I am running very low on time, and I don’t know if I will pick back up on these thoughts tomorrow. I guess what I am trying to say is, the enemy will do whatever he can to distract you from getting alone and getting still before God. He will throw all kinds of things at you, telling you of the things you need to do or taunt you with things that seem so much more appealing. But the reality is, when you taste and see that the Lord is good, your spirit will rise up and put your fleshly desires in their place. Because nothing in this world is worth our time and full undivided attention more than our Creator. He is the Potter, I am the clay. And I cannot wait to see how He is going to mold me as I sit in silence, talking with Him and meditating on His Words. I dare you to give it a shot. It isn’t easy, but it’s worth it.