Up until two years ago, I served as a middle school pastor in Mobile. On a weekly basis, during the school year, I would get the opportunity to do a short devotion at the Fellowship of Christian Athletes (FCA) club at one of the Middle Schools. One of these early mornings, I was headed towards the school, and as I drove I was trying to decide on which 'talk' I wanted to give to the students. To say that nothing was coming to me is an understatement. On this particular morning, I was extremely distracted; by my home life, by my upcoming schedule for the day, by the radio, by traffic noise, by the sunrise, the amount of dust building on my dashboard, etc... . You get the point.
After
much pondering I decided to turn the radio off and to roll up the windows, so
that I could really focus and think through what I was going to bring to the
students.
As
I rode along, down Airport Blvd., in silence, I began to notice my truck making
this funny noise, it was kind of a whirrruppbbbb….. whirrruppbbbb…
whirrruppbbbb kind of noise. I had never heard this noise before and it
concerned me a little. It was then that God nudged me with the idea that this
noise had been here all along, I had just not heard it because I was too
distracted by other things.
I
believe that we are like that sometimes. We are unable to distinguish that
there may be something in our life that we need to deal with, with God, because
we are too distracted by the “noise of life” going on around us.
In
Psalm 46:10, the Bible says this,
"Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among
the nations, I will be exalted in the earth."
I
would like to encourage you to take some time today to 'Be still' before God,
and hear what he has to say. Don't let the extent of your communication be a
quick, self-pacifying prayer, thanking God for your meal. When you pray, take
time to be quiet and listen to God. Our prayer life should always consist of a
time of listening to God and not just bringing forth our laundry lists of
needs.
