Yet my hands so often reach for and pick up the laptop,
logging in yet again to email, hungry for something I cannot find. My fingers still so often enter in my
credit card number again to get that thing, whatever it is, trying yet a
different angle to scratch an itch I cannot ever seem to really pinpoint,
always just beyond my fingertips.
I go to the fridge and rifle through it for something that I never seem
to really find, shovel in another fistful of something salty or sweet, in
reality trying to fill the bottomless, yawning cavern in my soul with a tiny
toy plastic spade.
It has been over a year since my friend Salli sent me a link
to the blog of a woman whose writing has changed my life. Over a year since I bought the book and
began to read its life-changing message of learning and keeping the practice of
counting the gifts, the abundant grace gifts all around. Asking God to open my eyes and my heart
to his unending mercy and grace gifts all around. Even when my heart feels dead within my and my dry, thirsty
soul reaches for things that will not satisfy. When my hands again pick up my phone and send out random
texts to good friends about trivial things, but really asking, “Am I ok?” “Are you there or am I really
alone?”. No matter the trivial
subject, is that not often the real message? “Do I matter?”
“Do I count?” Am I seen?”
Over a year of trying to pull away, and only just now am I
really turning in, trying to learn to listen to the Spirit of God. Yes, I am just now, just really now am
I taking a pen and paper and sitting in silence. I am only a few days into this practice of listening. And you know what? After a year of striving to create a
vacuum into which He can speak, I am only just now turning in and finally,
well, finally…
…listening.
Ah-ha.
And you know what.
If I sit still and bow low and quiet my heart, He speaks. His word rises up in my heart. Still and quiet a book, chapter and
even verse number will come to my mind, I turn to it and my breath catches in
my chest.
He is speaking to me.
The God of the Universe, through the quiet whisper of the
Helper promised by the truest Revelation of Himself, the Son, speaks to me.
Whoa.
I am undone.
That first morning I sit in the big blue chair under the
lamp my bother gave me for Christmas, its soft yellow light spilling over my
white cotton gown, an oasis of light in the still darkened house.
Do not be deceived, I have nearly lost the discipline of
daily rising before my wee ones.
By some miracle, I stumbled down the hall and into His grace.
He was waiting for me.
I shyly pile around me my bible, journal, and a new little
devotion book. It is almost
awkward. Like being naked for the
first time in front of James.
Spiritually I disrobe, and stand before him. I am starving in the one way I need
most to be filled.
I turn my heart to the God of the Universe, and ask for him
to speak. I sit. I wait.
His whispers to me begin with the phrase, “Arise my love,
my Fair one, the winter is gone a new season is here…” My
heart quickens within me. I jot it
into my journal, first contact!
“I
know this!”, I think, “I know this!
This is scripture. This is
His word – now where was that?” My
hands instantly reach for my laptop, just a few inches away, instantly seeking to utilize
the world wide web of information at my fingertips, a god to which I constantly
appeal through the séance of google – desiring what Eve first lusted after when
she sold us all out: knowledge.
Perhaps it is called the web because it is a trap into which
I am so often entangled.
I often pluck this fruit and sink my teeth into the juicy
stuff it offers, and sell my own soul for trifles of useless knowledge, mere
morsels of tantalizing entertainment and before I know it I have wasted hours
of my precious resource: time.
He whispers again, “Be still. Listen. Do not
seek it, let me give it to you.”
I pull back my hand, not wanting to rip into this gift
before it is given. This is
something new, this waiting for it to
be given.
“Psalm 72”, whispers
the King to my heart.
I read it. I
sit. Nothing jumps out. I wait. My eyes linger on the print on the page. Words that stand forever, printed on
fragile onion skin that will one day crumble into dust. Then I see at the top, “A Psalm of
Solomon.” My spirit quickens within
me.
And again, that quiet voice, “Song of Solomon, Chapter
3.”
I flip to it, my heart beating a little faster. I read it. It is juicy.
“Are you gonna get up and look for me? Go out and seek me? Reach first for me? How bad do you want me?”
My appetite is stirred. I want more. I
want to seek him, I want to listen – to really hear him, and to respond to him in ways I never have
before. I want to find him, and
cling to him, and not let go of him until I am satisfied. Oh yeah, I am all in, more than I have
been in a long time. I linger over
the passage, finally stilled.
Striving ceases. I do not
need more information, I need
more silence, I need to wait
until what I really need is given. Even the waiting can be a gift. I need the stillness in my whirling world. He knows this, this lover of my
soul. I wait with great
anticipation.
My eyes fall on
the words just above chapter 3 on the very to which page he led me so gently.
They leap out and call to me, an aria of invitation welling
up and bursting forth with tenor joy:
“My lover said to me, ‘Rise up, my beloved, my fair one,
and come away. For the winter is
past, and the rain is over and gone.
The flowers are springing up, and the time of singing birds has come,
even the cooing of turtledoves. The
fig trees are budding, and the grapevines are in blossom. How delicious they smell! Yes, spring is here! Arise, my beloved, my fair one, and
come away!’”
(Song of Songs 2: 10-13 NLT)
Puccini sung by Pavarotti on his best day ain't got nothing on my lover Jesus. His voice cascades over my thirsty soul like living water from an eternal spring, cool, refreshing, and everything I have been seeking, longing for, that itch that I cannot seem to scratch that is always out of reach, no longer tormenting, that hunger so deep and elusive, satisfied.
He has been waiting for me. And finally I hear, turn, and respond.
Whoa.
I got bumps on my goose.
He is speaking to me.
He is speaking to me.
The God of the Universe, through the quiet whisper of the Helper promised by the truest Revelation of Himself, the Son, speaks to me.
After over a year of silence, he is speaking to me.
The winter is past, the rain is over and gone…
