Noise

"Be still and know that I am God." I think there is a thought here. To know God requires some stillness. I think I have an addictive personality. You know some of them but I am going to dare to reveal a couple more. I am addicted to noise. Sounds crazy because I love the quiet. I really do. I love to be alone at home. But I don't like it too quiet. I have to have background noise. I don't know how people survived the quiet long ago. It gives me an uneasy anxiety. Even in the car. I will turn on talk radio just to hear another human voice. Often I have the TV on and pay no attention to it at all just to hear the noise. I also like to be busy. Sometimes I think it is this feal of becoming useless, of no value. Some days, when I have been felt unproductive it has frightened me a little. I have read books on the value of being still and slowing the pace of life and they don't feel right to me. But when I read these words, the words to "be still" and understand that there is a knowing God in that stillness that I have not as yet understood, I want it. This week I will be practicing stillness. I will purposely have a quiet stillness on at least a couple evenings after work and purposely seek the God of stillness. I have gotten a taste of it in the prayer room and have been blessed, but want to seek that same experience in my home, with phones turned off, tv off, music off, dogs outside. I want to see if there is something to be found in the stillness. For some of you with kids this is still a dream, but it is hard even when the kids grow up. It is hard because we have grown used to the life we knew with them. It is also hard because we tend to value doing instead of being. I know that I do. We also live for experiences and fill our lives perhaps too easily. I know I did. I almost felt like a sinner if I had two days at home! Christianity and life aren't about doing, they just include doing, Christianity is about God, hearing His voice so we can do what He wants and not just fill our lives with tasks and noise.