All the rain we’ve had this season is additional evidence that this is a planting season in my soul. You know, April showers bring May flowers, right?
God is planting. He’s busy speaking into the Spring of my soul.
I need to be still and listen. It needs to sink into my heart. Why is that so hard for us?
James says that we should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to get angry, (James 1:19). I have never been quick to listen. I don’t even think you can categorize me as slow to listen. I have even sometimes been terrible to listen. Can I even use that as a phrase??? I have been praying that God would help me to be a better listener, not just to others, but also to Him. I have to give Him my full attention without an agenda, just like I do with the people in my life that need me to listen. Eye contact! It’s huge in the listening world. How do you have eye contact with God?? I’m finding that it has to do with my eyes being wide open and fixed. It isn’t so much of a slowing down as a purposeful gaze. Don’t get me wrong, it also requires a “slowed down” time, but I’m finding that God can say a lot in the midst of my day if I keep my senses wide open to Him. As I train my thoughts on Him, I can be still and listening in traffic, in the grocery store, making dinner or anywhere that I really open my eyes.
Listening is about receiving.
“… and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.” James 1:21
I am in a seas
on where I need to be still and listen to the word that God is planting in my soul. I need to receive it. Just like the rain brings the flowers, receiving God’s word on my parched soul brings the growth there. But first, my heart has to soak Him in. I can do this all day, when I practice fixing my thoughts on Him and what He is saying through His word, and my circumstances, my children, my neighbors, and even the lady at the grocery store. It’s slowing down to look around me at the blessings of nature before I get in the car to rush off to my next destination. It’s an awareness.
Father, make me willing in the rain and the tilling of my heart. Thank you that you will plant your word deeply in my heart and I can trust in a season of fruit and harvest coming. Help me submit to the tilling and the rain with a joyful heart. Let steadfastness have its full effect (James 1:4) and don’t let me rush it, because it won’t be rushed.
Help me to trust you to bring the fruit and not to strive as though it depends on me.
What is God trying to tell you? Ask Him. Then soak in the answer.
written by: Lauren Mitchell
CHM Contributor
