How Long Is Your "To Do" List?
These wise words come from Elisabeth Elliot’s Keep a Quiet Heart:
When Satan came to tempt Jesus in the wilderness, his bait was intended to inspire the lust to do more than the Father meant for Him to do--to go farther, demonstrate more power, act more dramatically. So the enemy comes to us in these days of frantic doing. We are ceaselessly summoned to activities: social, political, educational, athletic, and--yes--spiritual. Our "self-image" (deplorable word!) is dependent not on the quiet and hidden "Do this for My sake," but on the list the world hands us of what is "important." It is a long list, and it is both foolish and impossible. If we fall for it, we neglect the short list.
Only a few things are really important, and for those we have the promise of divine help: sitting in silence with the Master in order to hear His word and obey it in the ordinary line of duty….
Maybe the key to getting God to the top of our “to do” lists is drastically chopping away at the other things already on them. Actually, Jesus told Martha only one thing was necessary.
"Martha, Martha," the Lord answered, "You are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed." Luke 10:41-42
posted by Catherine Reid @ 8:21 AM
2 Comments:
When you are sitting close and trying to listen, how do you (CFR) know when He is talking?
Since you asked about me personally I will answer about my personal experience, but I know that exerience varies from person to person and you might want to ask other people as well as me. And my experience will probabaly vary for yours but for what it is worth, here are my thoughts.
I have different experiences with hearing God depending on what I am doing at the time.
If I am just sitting quietly I will feel God's peace begin to fill me. It is a different kind of peace than one feels, say, on vacation or a beautiful day. It is much more all encompassing. It is a peace that can exist even though there are problems going on in my life. Often I begin to have thoughts about the greatness of God. These arise spontaneously, meaning I am not trying to go through my head and catalog all the big things I know about God and repeat them. They just well up inside of me. I believe this is the Holy Spirit speaking and filling me with love for God. You might be thinking, "Well so what? Who cares about these general thoughts of God?" but they are important in my spiritual walk since they keep me going, give me energy, and remind me of what is important and where I am headed. (By the way, before I try to sit quietly before God, I almost always read some portion of the Bible. That's a good transition for me. If I did not do that, I would probably resist just sitting and would worry about all the things I want to get done on the rest of my "to do" list.)
I hear God in a different way if I am praying or mulling over what I should do in a particular situation (which is kind of a blend of thinking and praying at once). What happens then is a verse or a Bible story that is similar to the situation I am dealing with will pop into my head. This is often in response to a direct question in my prayer--just like a direct answer. This will give me guidance about what I should do. I know some people will think this is just my own mind at work. I truly believe it is more than that. I believe it is God bringing things to my mind and speaking that way. I know myself well enough to know that I don't have a good enough memory on my own to remember some of these things! Also, I realize that some of the insights that I have gained this way are not things I would have realized on my own brain power alone.
I believe I have on one occassion heard God speak specific words out loud to me. It was very clear and distinct and there is no doubt in my mind that it was a separate voice, not my own mind thinking this is what God might say on this type of occassion. In talking with other people, I know that others have experienced the same thing but for everyone I have spoken with, it is very rare, like once or twice in a lifetime--and many, many people never have heard this voice at all, at least not yet.
And I really can't fail to mention that the Bible is God's written speech to us. When I want to hear God's voice on demand I can just sit down and read it, asking Him to explain what I can't understand. This is particularly useful when my mind is too unsettled to pray or sit quietly or when the setting makes that difficult, ie, doctor's waiting room or whatever. At those times I just read like I would a regular book, absorbing the themes subconsciously without worrying about what they are or trying to turn the event into some big study or religious experience. I just read knowing God's voice must be sinking in. (Listening to the Bible read aloud, which I have done on long car or train trips, is a good way to absorb long chunks of the Bible.)
There is a good book called, Hearing God, written by Dallas Willard, which answers a lot of questions about the topic of listening for God's voice. In fact, the subtitle of the book is: "Developing a Conversational Relationship with God." I bought it used from Amazon so it was pretty cheap. Willard is a philosophy professor at the University of So. California. Sometimes his writing is pretty deep and takes some work to think through but it is really worth reading.
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