Time of My Life

Funny little thing happened on Wednesday.

An elderly gentleman (who is not exactly gentle...but we'll get to that) brought home a lesson God has been speaking to my heart about. 

Not a day has gone by over the past couple of months that I haven't had the prodding whispers (and sometimes  shouts) from the Spirit to "...be still, and know that I am God..." I confess, my life is too hectic. Off the charts busy. It's like I have an aversion to moderation when it comes to managing my time. And I justify every commitment and each new "yes" to the simple fact that it's something worthwhile, good and can't be passed up. When I can't go one step more, and/or tired of fighting the guilty feeling that I'm ignoring concentrated time with the Lord I take a pitiful step back. In attempt to settle my mind and quiet my spirit to just sit at His feet, I quickly find that I'm like a tightly wound top.  It's near impossible to be still.

All the while, my soul craves to be saturated with Him. Saturated by quiet, alone time that can't be satisfied by my multiple Bible studies or daily reading of His word. We're talking a solid couple of hours, or however long it takes.

And yet, I just continue to shamefully let more time to pass. Filling up the days "doing" when I should just "be." It's sad when you have to look at your calendar to schedule solitude time with the Lord...

Thus the burden to be still just increases.

So this elderly gentleman came into the office on Wednesday. He has been in a few times, and has a reputation of sharing some crazy stories, and not exactly the clean versions, so I usually keep my distance from the cranky old man. He has lived a long time and likes doing things his way. After he left, we realized that he had forgot an important document, thus I got the pleasure of calling him. While trying to explain the situation, and I admit he makes me nervous and so I began to ramble (kind of like what I'm doing in the paragraph right now! lol), he cut me off abruptly and commanded me to "stop talking." Way to be put in my place! Haha.

While at church that evening, my conversation with the cranky-old-man came to mind and realized that I had heard his abrupt "stop talking" before, but perhaps in slightly different forms. Just the way his statement got my attention in that instance over the phone, so the Spirit was using it to grab it once again...

Time for me to just be still and listen.