to be still...

Over the past week I keep being told to be still, be quiet. Anyone who knows me even remotely knows that still and quiet are not the words that tend to be used to describe me, generally people use things like energetic, talkative, or if you're my family things like Jabber Jaws and Motor Mouth are a bit more common descriptions than tranquil or silent. I spend time with God daily and I try to be quiet and still and God can tell you that this little bundle of energy generally jumps from scripture to scripture and my prayers are not generally easily followed, it's a good thing I have an all-knowing God who can discern the randomness I generally put forth. Awhile back in hopes of streamlining my prayers I decided to as often as I could to type them out, in fact there's a "prayers" folder on my computer. It tends to make them a bit more coherent, yet every time I know one's been answered I try to go back and find it and end up reading through about 20 of them and always wonder how in this mess of seemingly random thoughts how God was able to piece them together and come up with something that made sense. While I know that I'm young and not the most seasoned believer I have discovered in my 24 years that when a common theme comes up in God's word and from your spiritual leaders over and over again I need to listen. Since Monday through blogs, sermons, God's Word, and some good friends I have been told to be still and quiet approximately 27 times (to be honest I lost count around 25 but I know it's been a couple since then).

It's not like I haven't tried to be still before, I really have. I have gone into the woods, to the park, in the back yard with just my Bible, no cell phone, no ipod, nothing and every time I felt like I was in the ultimate battle of good versus evil. I always sit there and hear the Devil's lies going through my mind and then asking God to remove them, much of my time is spent quoting "do not be anxious for anything but in everything through prayer and petition with thanksgiving present your requests to God" and begging God to help me put my thoughts on "whatever is pure and righteous." I decided though after my constant prodding, obviously by God that I needed to take time over this 3 day weekend once again to turn off the cell phone, put away the ipod and go off to be still before the Lord. Little did I know that God had plans for me to be still a bit sooner than that...

At 501 last night, the young adults group at Fellowship, Mike once again talked about being still and quiet. I told God, "I get it! I'm going to take a very large chunk of time this weekend, you know I don't have time before that considering it takes about 2 hours for me to get still. You know that I almost have to wind up to it, it's not something that I can do quickly." God, as he does, responded quickly though as Mike said, "and I'm going to give you some time to be silent right now." I really think I rolled my eyes and thought, "ok, God I'll try, but you know me." So I put my head down on the table so I wouldn't be tempted to open my eyes and then Brad started playing the guitar, like I could ever get my mind to stop with a guitar playing! Worse yet, I love Brad to death but his rests were sometimes one beat, sometimes one and a half, sometimes he came in a bit too early. It's all i could think about, each pluck was like an eternity, each rest felt like a Jack-in-the-Box never knowing when exactly he's going to come in and that's when I heard God's audible voice. My all-powerful God was actually able to break through my thoughts and my fixation on notes and it felt like he screamed at me, "BE QUIET! BE STILL!" My mind resembled that of the storm that Jesus calmed, the rushing thoughts, the constant fixations suddenly were still." I sat there for a moment, overwhelmed, a bit fearful and so grateful. I was so grateful that God had silenced me, that I didn't have to do it myself and then God spoke again this time through the very thing that would normally have completely distracted me. In that moment I didn't even understand where the words were coming from but Sara had started to sing, but at that time I knew it was God's voice straight to me. I can't remember what the song was now even though it was a familiar tune. God just kept saying over and over again, "I did it for you. you don't have to do anything. you don't have to know anything. just continue to follow me one step at a time. i love you for the wretched, despicable sinner you are all you need to is fall on me. i need you to stop trying now. i know you want to do things for me, but i've already done it." It seemed that in that moment God and I had a 3 day long conversation even though I know that it really had only been maybe 4 or 5 minutes.

I didn't know how to explain this, I struggled last night asking God to give me words for what the change was and today he gave them to me. I began reading Mary Beth Chapman's new book Choosing to SEE, which by the way I HIGHLY recommend and she was talking about her journey with adoption, yet it was exactly how I feel about this point in my life. She says, "It captured my faith journey at that time. As you know, for many of the events in my life I'd made plans and barreled toward what I wanted. With this big life decision...I felt like I was making that journey one little step at a time, walking each step God showed me to walk, not taking matters into my own hands and churning toward where I wanted to go. I didn't know where I wanted to go. I was conflicted and chose to believe that being conflicted was right where I needed to be in order for my faith to be put into action." So, I'm in good company, I am conflicted, but I now know that being conflicted is right where God needs me to be.