SOUND OF SILENCE
Psalm 62:1
For God alone my soul waits in silence; from him
comes my salvation. (ESV)
God, the one and only – I’ll wait as long as he
says. Everything I need comes from him, so why not? (MSG)
I will wait quietly before God, for my victory
comes from him. (NLT)
Ahhhhh……silence! A highly valued commodity around
my house…..one of the benefits of being an early to bed and early to rise girl
is that I don’t mind getting up while there are still several hours of dark
left; but one of the downfalls is that such gals seem to produce little ones who
also love to get up at the crack of dawn!! My 9 year old is regularly up
around 6 am and loves to come downstairs and see what we are up to! Most
mornings she will find me reading or doing my devotion time. And I’ll admit
that more often than not...I do tend to get a bit perturbed that I’m being
disrupted in my time with the Lord…..but what I’ve come to see is that she does
respect this time and is content to find something quiet to do on her own when
she wakes up….knowing that this time is special and important to me.
God has given me such a voracious appetite for
“eating the word” as Sharon Glasgow would say! I would just study, read, and
ruminate all day if given the chance. I am just so amazed at how applicable
God’s Word is to all aspects of my life and so awed at how His Word has changed
me, my marriage, and my family. He is an awesome God and I just love being
still and spending time learning more about His character! The more I study the
more I realize how much more I have to learn and I pray that I never tire of
learning more about our precious Savior and Lord. This is how I can “keep an
eye on my spillage” as Stephanie Clayton says! I have a deep need to fill
myself with His Word so that what overflows from my heart, my mouth, my actions, and my thoughts are
only His thoughts and not my own sinful twists of selfishness.
Lord, You are truth. Your Word is truth. Thank
you for your Word that is alive and living and active. Thank you for the
invaluable gift of your Words for us. Thank you that reading your Word is so
accessible in our country. Thank you for being with me when I study. Help me to
learn more about You and let those lessons sink in deep not just in my mind,
but in my heart. Amen.
SOUL CONTROL
pg. 168 Let.It.Go.
“But God often places us
smack-dab inside the waiting room – on purpose. There we drum our fingers. We
scheme and plot. We move and micromanage. All the while trying to control the
situation…..
Only when we learn to drop the reins will we finally be able to
walk in faith. In the meantime, we attempt to exert control and leverage over
people and situations by many clever methods.”
Before our call to adoption,
I’ve never been stretched and perplexed and exhausted, and frustrated by
waiting as I am right now. These chapters on soul control and dropping the
reins are so practical to where we are this week!!
It would be so easy, so
natural for my “type A” self to act on a list of things that would potentially
make our wait for an adoption match go quicker:…..switch to another agency,
call our current agency and ask what I can change in our profile book to make
us appeal to expectant mothers, respond to recruitment emails even though after
praying we don’t feel like this child is a match for our family, oh the
possibilities are endless…..It is so very difficult to just be still and wait.
Wait on His timing and not our own. Wait on the child that He has planned for
our family instead of getting ahead of His plan.
I loved the prayer at the
end of chapter 9 and am praying that this week as I seek to drop the reigns and
just be still…
p. 182
Lord, when the situations
that swarm around me (not being selected by an expectant mother, waiting on
potential matches to come our way), tempt me to over control (want to change
agencies, figure out what is wrong with our profile book) and underestimate
your power (You are sovereign, You are in control), may I pause and speak truth
to my soul (Trust and Obey). And then may I go forth (with a happy heart),
content in your plans (Your timing not mine), trusting in your wisdom (You know
the child that is meant for our family), and willing to accept the outcome (To
you be the glory). Selah.
What-EVER!
p. 186 Let.It.Go.
Comparisons. Comparisons
always deal an arresting deathblow to your contentment.
We compare and covet and
desire to make a change or two in our homes or careers or families or looks. To
make it happen, we kick the control feature of our personalities into
turbocharged overdrive. Yes, catching up with the Joneses is a never-ending run
on the treadmill of dissatisfaction.
p. 190
We compare our reality with
the perception of someone else’s perfection. We compare our “yuck” with someone
else’s seems-to-be “yay!” We compare our boring and familiar with someone
else’s breathtaking and fabulous.
p. 191
content = Greek – “to be
satisfied to the point where I am no longer disturbed or disquieted”
This, sisters, is the place
God has already prepared for us in the midst of life’s storms. He is longing
for us to take our eyes off of our situation and fix them solely upon him.
When we adopt this attitude,
we live aloud the truth I once heard Elisabeth Elliot declare: “The difference
is Christ in me. Not me in a different set of circumstances.”
When I am tempted to compare
or want to get out of life’s circumstances here are some questions Karen
reminds us to ask ourselves: (p. 192)
1.
What does God want me to
learn about him that I might never discover if he were to suddenly pluck me out
of this situation?
2. What Christlike character traits is he trying to grow in me –
patience, trust, compassion, faith?
3. Who is watching – either up close or from afar – and discovering
what God is like by my reactions to my current situation?
4. How might my empathy for others deepen if I go through this
current trial with grace and acceptance?
5. What is God trying to say to me, not by the outcome, but through
the voyage?
p. 193
We need to stop tweaking and
trying. Instead, we must start trusting.
This entire chapter just
convicted me so much. I felt the Holy Spirit confirming our decision to be
still and wait regarding our adoption journey. I felt an awareness of the blessings
of waiting and the maturity that is growing in me as we walk this path by faith
and not by sight.
My sweet sister, Cayce over at TheFinley7, sent a One
Line a Day Five Year Memory Book to me this week with this verse:
I will remember the deeds of
the Lord; yes I will remember your wonders of old. I will ponder all your work
and meditate on your mighty deeds. Psalm 77:11-12
I plan on using this sweet
gift as a way to record His deeds and His work in me as we journey this path. I
want to remember His works and record what He is trying to grow in me and weed
out in my life.
Thank you, Father for your
unfailing love and your endless mercy and grace. You are life to me.
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