I Kings 9:1-10:29, Acts 8:14-40, Psalm 130:1-8, Proverbs 17:2-3

I Kings 9:1-10:29, Acts 8:14-40, Psalm 130:1-8, Proverbs 17:2-3

 

            It's funny how God puts messages, themes, and convictions in life that all happens at the same time.  It has been one of those weeks for me, and mind you, it's only Wednesday.  I suffer from a little sickness that I like to call "hurriedness."  It can be thought of as a disease at time, but if you know anything about me or have ever talked to me, I will describe my state, well being, and life as , "Great, good, fine, busy, busy, a lot going on, busy, etc."  I think you get the picture.  I have a brain that moves a thousand miles an hour…always thinking, analyzing, going on and on.  I have a crashing day about once a week where I spend my day off glued to the tv, Netflix, and the internet.  I am stuck in my generational stereotypes of technology, smart phones, communication overload, and everything that comes with it: isolation, depression, anxiety, and emptiness.  Truth.  I work in place where I am constantly surrounded by people, more than 1,000 people walk through my doors everyday.  Busy, busy, busy is what I live off of (with the exception of those days off I just described.)  The last few days I have been over whelmed with anxiety, stress, and feeling like I'm going to suffocate in my own thoughts.  I have been fighting a message that God wants me to hear and tonight I give up.  You may be fighting the same.  Maybe you have before or will in the future. 

           

            Psalm 130 is a prayer and cry out to God.  It is from a person in the "depths of despair" (NLT) that cries out.  I don't know if I have been in the depths of despair (and I won't use an Anne of Green Gables comparison two weeks in a row,) but I know how deep my life can feel and how deep my heart can feel from God.  This is a psalm that cries out to God, for Him to hear, for Him to listen.  The awesome things about today's reading is that God never changes.  He listened to Solomon in I Kings, he listened to the Psalmist, and He listens to me tonight.  Verse 5-6 is the message God has written on the mirror in front of me three days in a row now: "I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word I put my hope.  My soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen wait for the morning, more than watchman wait for the morning."  Waiting on the Lord – we have all had to wait: Divan waits for me when I'm getting ready, when I' shopping, when I'm finishing up at work.  It is an act that the whole body, emotions, and mind does in unison.  Notice what his hope is put into: the word.  Not His Creation, not God's mystery, not anything that surrounds us every day.  Hope if found in the Word.  This is where God reveals His voice, His promises, His being, and we can find hope in it.  Waiting for God more than a watchman waits for morning.  This is waiting.  There have been many sleepless nights where morning couldn't come fast enough.  The minute just dragged and dragged.  Why does a watchman wait for morning?  Physically being tired, the night can be scary, quiet, lonely, empty.  When first light comes, it means warmth, new life, new day, relief, and rest for that watchman. 

 

            On Monday night at Campaigners (Young Life Bible Study) Rico challenged us to take on the example of Jesus in Mark 1:35, "Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place where he prayed."  Rico asked us , "When was the last time you spend time with God, totally alone?  No phones, now distractions, just time between you and God?"  I couldn't remember the last time it was just the 2 of us, without distractions, a time of stillness.  My mom asked me tonight as I shared with here my anxiety, "Do you fill in all the minutes of your day because you're afraid of being alone?  Because as long as you pack in all these things, day after day (busy and busy,) then you don't have to confront yourself, or listen to what maybe God is trying to say?"  Boom.  I am a work in progress, very messy, but I am challenged to be still, one morning a week (this is a lot for me) where I put everything away, learn how to be still, listen, and wait on the Lord.  Start learning to listen for Him.  Putting my hope on the Word, not myself, my job, or others.  Don't let yourself and consumed by this disease if hurriedness and busy-ness.  Be like the watchman and wait on God, wait for him.  Listen, be still, and "put your hope in the Lord, for with the Lord is unfailing love and with him is full redemption."