In the stillness…

I’d like to admit something.

God has been calling me for about three weeks now to meet Him in the stillness. And I don’t know how.

I know how to meet Him in worship…by giving my heart and mind and soul and body in worship…so my mind is thinking and meaning the words of the song, my hands are busy reaching for him or playing the notes on the keyboard, my feet are busy pressing the sustain pedal with one and balancing on the other…so there’s nothing left of me to get distracted and pull me away.

I’ve learned how to meet Him in my Bible…by keeping my mind thinking and wondering about what I read, and my fingers busy typing as fast as they can and slowing down my thoughts in the process…typing out what God shows me as I ask Him questions about what I’m reading.

But I do not know how to meet Him in the stillness. How do I meet Him when my hands are doing nothing? How do I still my mind and shut out the bullet-train of thoughts that never seems to find a station?

I tried to get down on my knees every morning, just to wait. I tried it several mornings and it just didn’t seem like I was meeting Him. Then God showed me that, just like everything else, this is not something I can do on my own strength. It’s another thing that Katie simply cannot do. In fact, in my quest to “do what He called me to do,” I somehow let the entire week go by without getting into His word once. Which meant my heart lost its tuning fork and couldn’t hear Him all that well.

Yeah…that’s how successful living in my own strength is.

Yet He called me to do it! Therefore, it is another thing that He is going to do through me.(Gal. 2:20)

I also tried what had “worked” for another woman. Lord, I begged, You did this for her, so You will for me, right? You don’t show partiality!

After several days of that, He finally whispered, “That’s right. I do not show partiality. But I also love to do new things. I want to teach you this lesson in a new way. A way that is different from her way. A way that is different from your way. It will be My way. For you.” So I went back to what I knew He had called me to do…spending time with Him first, as the firstfruits of my time.

This morning I ran down my list of inspirational blogs that I lightly follow…skimming, as usual, to see if God wants to speak to me through any of them. And today, He definitely did.

It began:

A couple years ago, I lost my daughter at Disneyland.

We were in a large group: six adults and four children and we all stopped to look at a fountain.

But Hope, six years old at the time, kept walking. She didn’t intentionally wander off exerting defiance or trying to be naughty. She simply kept going in the same direction we’d all been walking a few minutes before.

I felt that prick and knew I had to read the rest, though I mistakenly thought it was because no mother can easily read of a child getting lost without wanting to also read that the child was found. But no sooner had I clicked over to read the rest of the story, than I felt God speaking to me.

We walk forward, right?

Jobs, mothering, being attentive wives, writing, reading, working on our relationships. We move forward.

Call the doctor back, pick up my daughter from school, wash the dog in the upstairs bathtub, pick up my daughter from school again, email my friend from church, email my friend from high school.

I move forward. Almost blindly…And then I’m lost.

You see…just as Sarah explains, I too have often been “getting lost while walking forward.” I know that. That’s why I’ve been asking God for quite a while now to “order my days.” I know my days are not walked out minute by minute as He would have me walk them. I’m still asking Him to order my days and teach me how to walk with Him.

Read the rest of her post, if you want. (It’s on (In)Courage, instead of her regular blog.)

But for me, I felt God whispering that this is why He is going to show me how to meet Him in the stillness. Because, throughout my day, I need to stop. Pause. Be silent before Him to listen for His voice, seek His direction, and lift my heart in the praise and gratitude that re-invites Him into my day.

And I have to say that, right now, I’m eager. I’m waiting on Him, ’cause I can’t get there on my own…but I can’t wait ’till He takes me there. Into the stillness…