"Stop"
by Pastor Aaron
My wife is soft spoken. I regularly have problems hearing her if she’s in the next room or even if she turns away from me and tries to tell me something. I’m constantly asking her to repeat herself. Part of the problem though is my bad hearing. When I was a little kid I played the drums WAY too loud in a little tiny room that rang with no earplugs. So now my hearing isn’t 100%.
It seems that almost everyone I’ve talked to lately there is a common thread in their life. Stress. You are busy! You guys are non-stop all day long only to wake up and do it again tomorrow. There are days where you’re lucky if you can choke down a burger between activities.
When does that stop though? I mean let me be honest with you, if at 14, 15 or 16 you’re running this crazy....it’ll never stop. Being an adult with a job, you don’t have any more time. You have less. Instead of 3 months in the summer, you get two weeks a year. So basically you’re going to be running until you’re dead.
Can I propose that God’s design for us is not this. Can I propose to you that God wants us to stop.
In I Kings 18 Elijah is in a cave and God tells him to go out to the mountain because he’s about to pass by. So out goes Elijah. This giant wind whips up and shatters rocks around Elijah, but God wasn’t in that. Then there was an earthquake, but God wasn’t in that. Then there was a fire, but God wasn’t in that. Then God shows up. How? A whisper. God shows up in a whisper.
Psalm 46 is an amazing piece of Scripture. The first part of the chapter is talking about turmoil. Waters roaring with foam, nations in an uproar, stuff like that. Then we hit vs. 10 "Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth."
I guess I wonder how we’re suppose to know what God desires for us, if we’re not listening to Him. If our world is so cluttered with noise and events and turmoil and so forth. When do you take the time to be still? To be quiet? To listen? Has our hearing been affected by the noise. We just aren’t hearing at 100% anymore.
Instead of praying “God I want....”, “God I need.....”, “God would you.....”, what about letting God do some of the talking. Listen for the quiet whisper of God. Be still and know.
Stop.