listening and waiting.

Isn't it delightful to have those moments of quiet? Those moments when breathing in and breathing out is enough. Those moments when just being, is sufficient. What do you fill those moments with? This is how to truly know someone, by taking a glimpse at what they fill "those" moments with. The moments when you are completely and totally alone. What drives you? What are you passionate about in those moments? Is it music? Television? Writing? Reading? Eating;-)? What is it?

I am passionate about many things. If I am not careful, my passions can fill every waking hour of each and every day. This, I have found, is not the healthiest approach to life. There needs to be quiet and stillness, not always going, going, going. There needs to be time to just simply breath. To sit and listen. It has truly amazed me in the past, how much I miss by not simply listening. I'm not talking about listening to people, though it is a very valuable thing to be a good listener. No, I'm talking about sitting and listening to what's going on inside of me...or isn't. I'm talking about being still long enough to hear my God, for I miss so much by not simply being still, waiting, and listening.

I want to be a true listener of my God. I desire more than anything to hear His still, small voice and not just to hear, but to wait with bated breath on what He may say. It is beautiful, poetic, hard, wonderful, and so many more things, the words He speaks. I long to have my heart and soul so in tune with His, that at the first whisper I stop everything and listen. Truly listen. This is what I want to practice, to refine, to know that I am capable of. For what does it matter how I claim to live my life, how I claim to be following His will if I cannot simply stop and listen to what He wants so desperately for me to hear and understand? I can read His Word daily, I can read the same passage over and over, but what does it benefit me if I'm simply reading and not listening, not taking it all into the depths of my soul?

This is a hard skill to fine tune. Our culture is so fast paced, requiring instant gratification for every single thing we do. We have lost the beauty, the art of simply waiting on the best we can have. I have found so often in my own life, that the fruits of waiting for something are far sweeter than those that I can have immediately. This is what spurs me on each day, the waiting for the best that I know is to come from Him. Whether it be waiting to gaze upon His face one day, waiting for a prayer to be answered in His perfect timing, waiting for the champion, the future husband that is out there somewhere to be led to me, waiting to see His joy grow in someone I love, the waiting for all of this is a journey in and of itself. The waiting and the listening both go hand in hand, so I would perfect them both. To simply be still, wait, and listen for the sweet voice that leads me to things I never thought to dream or imagine...