Quiet

I was walking my dog one evening this week and it was dark already, the moon was bright enough to light our way around the dog path in our neighborhood. And it was so quiet! There weren’t even other walkers out! It was just me and my fur baby and even she was quiet. Our dog path goes along a somewhat busy road, but there were no cars, no airplanes overhead, just stillness. I was brought to a moment of just pure thankfulness for it. I’ve been thankful for such small things in life lately. I feel certain it is where God is taking me or slowing me down to do so. The things I never contemplated before - thankful for peacefulness, thankful for safety, thankful for warmth. It’s a destination to which my arrival has been delayed for a long time. Am I where He wants me to be? I doubt it - I have a desire to strive for that optimum, and I think that is pleasing enough to Him. At this point I reflect on many “isms” - Is this where He wants me? Is this the career path He really had for me? He promises that He makes a way for us…that He has a plan, a hope and a future. What was His hope for me? He knit me together in my mother’s womb, He knew me before I knew myself, so I know He had a plan when He created me. Have I fulfilled that plan? I doubt it; most days I feel I’m lost in the weeds versus being on the pathway! I’ve always liked the phrase, “make lemonade out of lemons”; and that could actually be my theme. There are many moments or even phases of my life that I have done this, or had to do this to survive, I mean emotionally, not like physical suffering but just emotional stuff…Why was I so accepting of my circumstances? How did I get there in the first place? Why hadn’t I wanted harder what He wanted for me? All I can say is we have all fallen short of the glory of God. I end up on the “more so than others” side of this verse more often than I should.

Don’t get me wrong this is not a woe is me post, on the contrary - I am very, very blessed, and I know it. I do not roll through life thinking things “just happen”. But I have to contemplate on the pure love He has for me to have knitted a somewhat normal life out of my no so great choices I’ve made at times. He’s even provided amazing opportunities to serve Him in ways that only He could have created and opened the doors to make the way for me to enter.

So, this brings me to my thought of quiet. It’s in the stillness , we are quiet…we hear His voice. It may be a voice, it may be a thought that pops in our heads or a leading of our heart, but we know it’s Him. That’s where change begins. When we are still, when we are quiet He can change us. He is not going to compete for our attention, that wouldn’t be genuine. He leaves it up to us to stop and acknowledge Him- it’s that choice thing again with God. He always leaves the choice up to us…such smart parenting skills! I wonder if He worries we won’t decide to seek Him. I would be that parent saying…”if I don’t hear from you by such and such time, there’s going to be trouble…” wouldn’t He rather be like that? More controlling..but no, He’s patient! But He invented patience right! Just imagine simply waiting for your kids to do the right thing!!! It’s got to be tough even for God.

His ways are certainly not our ways, right? It’s His will for our lives that He wants us to want, that He wants us to seek. And if we are doing the seeking then it’s genuinely from our hearts. It’s then He knows our true level of commitment, it’s then He knows He’s got something to work with. I’ve heard all my life that the safest place to be is in His will. I’m not so sure about the actual safety of that place. I do know that in His will when He asks you to do it, He’ll take you through it. And that is safety, is contentment, is peace, is quiet.

May your quest for quiet rest in Him, begin today.

The verses I referenced in the Bible today are from the NIV (New International Version) translation:

Isaiah 43:19 - I am doing a new thing - Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland.

Romans 8:31 - If God is for us who can be against us?

Philippians 4:19 - And my God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus.

Jeremiah 29:11 - “For I know the plans I have for you”, declares the Lord, “plans to proposer you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future.”

Psalms 139:13-16 - You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body and knit me together in my mother’s womb.

Romans 3:23-24 - For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by His grace through the redemption that came by Jesus Christ.

Isaiah 55:8 - “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways”, declares the Lord.

Blessings - Rhonda