Make Space, Be Still Enough to Hear
“When we come to a resting place, take time to be refreshed in my presence. Enjoy the rhythm of life lived close to me.” Jesus Calling
There is great temptation to overfill our holiday season with lots of shopping and activity, but in the rhythms of life God created, Christmas and the New Year are to be times of celebration and reflection. Last year the theme of our advent dinner was, “Being Still enough to Hear”, and we had just finished reading the “Best Yes” in our Bible Study so my heart was ripe to think on how to be still. To be still enough to hear there has to be space made to hear from Him. There has to be some, “no’s” to activity. It will never just happen. There’s never a time aside from our intentionality where there is nothing to do.
The first time I made space for God and chose to be still was after a semester on MU’s campus. I had really learned intimacy with God when as a lonely freshman in a sea of people He became my best friend and talking companion on my long walks to and from class. Final’s week had left my time with God lacking, and as I got home my family was heading to a high school basketball game. It was my first intentional “no”. As I laid staring at the lit Christmas tree, there was a defining moment of change in how I viewed Christmas not just a season of giving and getting but a season of receiving the greatest act of love and pursuit ever made on our behalves. I saw the lit lights on the tree, and they became a symbol of His light in darkness. Having just come out of my first semester on a college campus in a sorority house I had seen first hand how great the darkness can be, and He willingly left the absence of all darkness, a place of perfect love, peace, and purity to be our light in darkness.
The next year the same choice came and I had remembered how meaningful just one night of intentionality had made my Christmas so I stayed back. That night I had a defining moment in my Christian walk as I was thanking God for the passion and fire He’d birthed in me to be fanned into flame and that life, trials, and time would not snuff it out, I heard his Spirit within ask me to surrender myself to Him, to His service, to be His not my own. My decision to be still had offered me the greatest blessing-His voice, His invitation, His love.
The next Christmas I assumed would be full of intense grief as it was our first Christmas without our mom. Since I was a college student and my siblings just teens we had asked our not so stable dad to come live in our mom’s house, an attempt to keep the house and patch the ache of no family. Instead our mom’s house was not the clean put together home we were used to celebrating Christmas in, the propane tank had not been filled and there was no hot water, the mortgage was passed due, and the cabinets weren’t full. Our grief was so great for what was gone and for what was. I felt poor and alone. Some friends took me to a nativity play and as I watched God reveal himself to the shepherds I was reminded that He sees the humbled, the down trodden, the nobodies, the poor and He comes down, reveals himself and invites us to see His son, His gift. That year I left campus with tears streaming down my face and a pocket full of money that my underpaid professors collected for my family. One of my teachers at SBU knew my situation and she wanted to make sure we had hot water, a paid up mortgage and gifts under our tree. I was in a season of great need emotionally and financially but God was reminding me that He is our Immanuel, “God with us” in the lowly shepherd hills or in a small town home full of grief. He sees, He provides, He gives.
Make some space this season, give an intentional “no” to be still enough to hear it will make all the difference in your season.
2015/12/10 at 11:35 pm