So I have been taking 10 minutes each day for the past 4 days to just sit, be still, and listen for God and asking him to weed out the bad stuff in me. The first day went pretty well, but the past couple I have found my self constantly distracted by the worries of the day. I suppose it doesn’t help that I have this huge project looming over me that is due tomorrow! However it has also seemed these past couple of days that in the worried distraction, new ideas or strategies come to me for dealing with what I have to do that day. It would seem easy to assume that this is God giving me those tools, “providing me my daily bread”, but I worry (yeah I am a worry wart) that that isn’t the case and I’m just making an excuse for not having more focus and quieting my mind.
I started this retreat to my secret place with God for two reasons. First, in the latest warrior series being done by Liquid Church (my online church since 2006) , one of the messages was about how we as disciples need to practice time alone with God, just as Jesus did before many of His miracles and His arrest. The second was Westport Church’s (my home church since this August) current series on being stuck and how to get unstuck. Here we were challenged to write down a commitment we were going to make for getting out of a spiritual rut. And thus my Secret Place retreat was born, which turns out great since my wife and I just converted our walk-in closet into a prayer closet (something new to me, but she had in college).
So I guess I have these expectations that if I can practice being still and tuning everything else out then I will be able to hear God’s leading. But is it always like that, is it always a whisper or a tug?
The Screwtape Letters
I was telling my wife the other night about how if I hear something in my mind that might be from God, I am so paranoid that it is just me saying it, or worse, it is my own personnel Wormwood at work. In one of her many moments of wisdom, my wife proposed that if it is a whisper/leading that is persistent and feels truer and truer at a heart level, it is probably from God. But where do epiphanies, revelation, and even prophecy fit in? I tend to think that they are composed more of imagery and ideas, rather than vocal command. I certainly don’t claim to be a prophet, nor see more of Jesus’ revelation than anyone else; I would like to think however that my epiphanies for the day (if they qualify as that) are of God, Him using my weakness for distraction to bless me with some clarity for the day.
But I don’t know, wish I did, anyone else have thoughts like this, or am I just trying to make myself feel better with excuses? Do you have any strategies/books for keying in better to God’s voice?
