Before I tell family and friends about this blog I wanted to go through a whole week of this "experiment" of turning off the radio at work so I could have something (hopefully) positive to report. As has happened in the past, most of the time nothing other than quietness "happens". Of course my own thoughts come and go. Sometimes my mind can be amazingly blank, but at other times my mind can be in overdrive and full of many thoughts. An obvious question that one has to wrestle with in this kind of an exercise is determining how to distinguish what is of God and what isn't. A good place to begin is James' description (3:17) of "the wisdom that comes from heaven". When God speaks it will be "pure . . . peaceful, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere (without hypocrisy)". Another clue for me, is when a thought pops into my head that doesn't sound like something I could come up with on my own - it just doesn't "sound like me."
At one point during the week when the thoughts were few and far between, the impression (some thoughts are so "light" and fleeting that I simply call them impressions) came to me that it felt good to simply relax and be at peace in the presence of God, like a child who is curled up on her Daddy's lap. Later in the week I associated this impression with the image of our dog, Champ who, in typical dog fashion, loves to quietly lie down near me whenever I'm working in the garden or doing something outside. He doesn't require me to show him any special attention. He's simply totally content to know that he is near his master. And for a fleeting moment I knew that I was enjoying that same peace and contentment while I was at work. I didn't need to be "hearing" God speak to me. I could be fully content just knowing that He was near.
To give you an example of how "my thoughts" will sometimes interact with what I believe are genuinely God's thoughts, at one point I decided to ask God to reveal hidden sins. After all, an important part of revival, of drawing closer to God, is being convicted of sin and repenting. After waiting a good while and not having any convictions of sin coming to mind, I experienced a perfectly natural thing for a painter. I overloaded my brush with too much paint and some of it began to drip on the floor. Moments later the thought came to me. "Just as that brush had too much paint loaded onto it, you already have enough "loaded" on your "brush" (or as the more common expression puts it, I already had enough on my plate)." I sensed that God was telling me that I didn't need to be convicted of any more sins right now. It was sufficient that I focus on this one thing of turning off the radio and becoming more receptive to whatever He wanted to communicate to me." BE A CHAMP! Learning to slow down, to quiet myself in the presence of God and to simply be totally content in His presence - that was enough to focus on for now. Any more and it would simply drop off as from an overloaded brush and be wasted.
The acid test of whether or not this was simply another thought of my overactive mind, or a genuine communication ("word") from God, came on the drive home Friday evening. Usually, after a week of work and doing the grocery shopping before heading home on Friday, I'm sufficiently tired that listening to the radio is all I have the energy to do. But I truly surprised myself by leaving the radio off and . . . singing! Occasionally I will sing on the way to work in the morning, but never on the way home when I'm tired - this was truly a new experience! But get this. As if to drive home a point something else happened. Right in the middle of one of the worship songs that I was singing, I felt the car hesitate as it was changing gears. This happened not once, but twice, and it felt just like a previous car I had when the transmission began to go bad on it. But the amazing thing is, I just kept on singing and felt totally at peace despite the prospect of our car needing major work ($$$$) done on it! I just "knew" that everything would be alright, that I didn't need to worry. Now that didn't sound like merely a "Bruce Jones thought" to me!
So, there you go. Anybody who wants to join me on this adventure of "tuning into God" and "tuning out" the distractions, feel free to share your stories on this blog. You can do this one of two ways: either tell your stories in the "comments" spot, or email them to me (barajones@gmail.com) and I will post them on this blog.
"God is not too good to be true. He is so good He must be true." - George MacDonald
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1 comment:
I really liked your analogy about the overloaded paintbrush. I have been attending the Congregational church that I told you about and on the first Sunday of each month they have communion, and I have felt frustrated that I haven't really been able to come up with sins to confess before taking the bread and wine, even though I know I am full of it. But since moving here to Maine and setting up a new community, I have had this increasing urgency and desire to really pursue God again. So reading about the overloaded paintbrush gave me assurance and hope that maybe like you this is where I am at and it is not the time to be looking at sins.
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