Challenged to Listen

Gavin and I are blessed to be a part of a shepherd group (fancy lingo for small group) with our local church, Reston Bible Church (RBC). Though I just deleted several paragraphs describing the group to you, you should still know that I absolutely adore this group of people, and count myself very blessed to have them in my life for this season.:)

We're reading excerpts from a book called Classic Devotionals, which gathers excerpts of sermons, writings, etc. from classic Theologians and Christian leaders throughout history - great little book, btw. The most recent read was by Henry Nouwen about finding solitude in our prayer life. We had a great discussion and I left feeling very challenged.

Our beloved pastor Dave, from the Cambridge Vineyard, issued an amazing challenge a few years back that relates to this very topic. I can't remember how he titled it, but it was basically prayer journaling. The concept is to quiet your mind for the purpose of conversing with God. As you begin to speak to God the way you would to a precious loved one, you right down the conversation that begins to unfold.

It goes something like:
me: Hi, God
Hi
me: How ya doin today?
doin' good, thanks. How you doin?
me: I'm feeling a little depressed. What's going on with me?

..you get the picture. ..and you sit and listen, typing what you hear even if you think that may have just been yourself answering that question. Eventually, you learn to distinguish between your head voice and His. ...I am still blown away, as I read back through those entries, the amazing things my daddy revealed to me when I was quiet and listening, conversing with him.

{...don't judge it, till you try it!! I know, I know, I know what you're thinking; how quickly things like this can be taken to an unhealthy extreme; how you can do some damage with this if what you hear is not held in check with scripture and accountable to someone outside of yourself, and on and on. But! don't judge it, till you try it! Meditation and solitude are consistant themes held throughout scripture. Just because the enemy has taken this concept and twisted it to have a negative association, doesn't mean it is not redeemable, and should not, therefore, be redeemed, to the glory of God.}

The months that I practiced this were some of the most amazing times of revelation in my spiritual life to date. Not only was there power in just taking time to listen and speak little, but the power of carving out time for solitude is enormous. I have great intentions for starting to prayer journal again (Trish do you remember what he calls it?), but in the mean time I am focused on redeeming every moment I can for really listening to God; our amazing God who is still speaking.

Today, I was out and about for a few hours with the girls. I began those few hours asking for God to use my current vulnerability to please speak to me - I was listening. He spoke - so sweetly. He gave me three sweet opportunities to be used by Him. The girls were a part of two of those opportunities. How precious are the things God will show us, if we just stop our inner noise long enough to listen.

As one of our dear friends shared this week in our SG (shepherd group), we just need to get in touch with our sheep-ness. Even though sheep are a pretty dumb animal, at least they recognize their Shepherd's voice, and listen.

Today was a blessing. The challenge is to keep listening....

(to be continued)