Saturday, October 14, 2006

Listen To This

For he that is entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from his own works, as God did from his.
Heb 4:10


It has been striking me repeatedly over the last months that there is far more to this whole listening thing than I first thought. It shouldn't seem that strange given to Whom I am trying to listen. The abounding thoughts which flow from God are bound to be overwhelming and capable at any moment of sweeping you away from your sensory moorings into a cascade of pure, unadulterated life. Perhaps the repeated striking has been my mind bouncing off of its moorings.
The thing that has captivated me has been the bliss of silence, the confidence in speechless surrender. It seems that the whole of creation does indeed sing out praises when I stop to listen. Not just trees and streams either, the flow of photons streaming from the halogen lights over our kitchen counter exacting the law God prescribed they should follow with not the slightest bend. The unyielding molecular mass of the 2x4 that mashed my bean at work, which thought not once of straying from what God designed it to do. All things which seem to serve and those which seem not, but do. All these things silently confess my Lord. My mouth when it remains still.
One man told me that he would not hear God speak to him in times of silence because God was not passing things through his mind for his approval. He was communing in the Spirit. I chuckled, somewhat nervously until the day came when I would understand. The day when my 5 year old boy came to me with a heart full of hurt feelings induced by some harsh words. I tried to talk to him as he shifted into me on my lap, but he heard nothing. I thought I had some great wisdom that would help heal him, but he instead had wisdom for me. I asked him if he just wanted to sit with me and he gently nodded his head. He was communing in the spirit with his dad and receiving all he needed at that point.
I am beginning to learn the art of sitting with Dad. I am beginning.