the still, small one

Just listen...What do you hear?

Filter out the add-ins and you are left with just the ringing of ears, the high pitched leftovers of a fast-paced world. Nothing speaks, no one calls, yet a pace has been set that keeps you from being present. The clanging around of the troubles of soul have been given momentum from the trials of this day. The ricochets of thought set in motion by lack of trust and burden of responsibility echo into the moments when only peace is desired. There does not seem to be enough minutes in the day that will allow the sediment to settle to the bottom, time enough to sift out the lies.

So you work.

You build faster, you push harder, you run longer, you think bigger. It is your job to tame this life, so wild and blood thirsty. It is your purpose to organize, orchestrate, fortify, solidify this future of yours for if you were to let it go, it would simply fade into the silence.

And you are scared of the silence.

What is said when there is none is certainly not from you. Only an outside voice can dissolve a personal surrender to quietude.
And you hold your plans so high.
For you do not trust that another might love you more than you love yourself. Your efforts just might be insufficient.

But you are not without excuse. This life, so wild and blood thirsty, has taken its bites from you. Your flesh is marred and your heart has its memories. You had at one time trusted and been knocked over the head with your naivete.

But never again. You learned that the world was not your friend and that your friends may not be just that. Your life, so beautiful and promising, was no longer what you lived, but what you conquered.

But a hope, a blessed hope, bleeds through the cracks in your stubborn foundation and drips silently into the well of pain. A peace speaks softly to the insecurities just to make its presence known.

No shouting, no impatience, simply presence.

And slowly you learn that this life is not so wild and blood thirsty for it has a creator who is good and lovely. And softly you hear someone say they do not want you to do so much as they want you to be.

Be quiet. Be still. Be thankful. Be near.

And the fears of potential and the reminders of sin are not eradicated but superseded. And the past returns from its voyage of demonization. All that you are, all that you have been, and all that you shall be is in the hands of one who has known you long before you realized you had a life to lose.

It is not so much that the promise of ease is given, but the assurance that you are seen...that there is one who weeps with you who weep...there is one who laughs with you who laugh...there is one who will reprove you who scorn.

And you will be taken to that place where you might hear of great love if you only stop and realize that it is not your task to make noise.

Open your ears.

The ringing has stopped, replaced by the sound of a beating heart. You do not command the life to flow through your veins. Whether or not you pay attention, you are sustained. You are cared for. And from there, might you begin this day. From the work that is being done within you and apart from you, might you begin to listen for where you must extend your energies and where you must accept your inabilities.

For My gentle voice may ask you to get up and move or I may tell you to lie down and rest. Will you listen when I speak...