We are sooo often Spiritually deaf and blind... we suffer from Spiritual Attention deficit disorder. God has really been showing me alot about His love recently, and the first thing in being able to live in Gods love is being able to pay attention to Him.
Isaiah 42:18 - " Hear, you deaf; And look, you blind, that you may see. Who is blind but My servant, Or deaf as My messenger whom I send? Who is blind as he who is perfect, And blind as the LORD's servant? Seeing many things, but you do not observe; Opening the ears, but he does not hear."
God even says His own servants and people are afflicted by blindness, we can not naturally attend to God in our own ways, we need to learn how to. God is always communicating with us, whether we know it or not, He shares Himself with us, when we do now even know He is doing so, and we are being spoken to continously, But.... we can not hear Him because we do not know how to listen.
We are all so busy rushing around doing other things, we do not hush up, we are always yacking, having music, tv and computers playing in the back ground, some people can not work without some back ground sounds playing, I myself can not do house work or things like that with some music playing, it keeps me moving and often keeps me in the mood to do it.
The first and fore mosst important thing in our spiritual life, is simply, but yet so hard, and that is to pay attention to God. It is soooo simply, but so difficult to do, considering that we have enough difficulties paying attention to anyone else. I know of so many people and I guess myself at times, who have selective hearing, when I don't wanna know I just don't listen, I tune out of it. And the easiest way to pay attention to God, is to be still. Psalms 46 tell us... "Be still and know that I am God".
It reminds me of a pond, when you throw a rock into a still pond, a ripple effect will occur and it will spread and reach to the shores of the pond. But if the pond is not still, if there is movement, the rock will enter with no effect, there will have been too much commotion already going on, it will go undetected. Stillness is always the requirment for receptivness. We need to be still and quiet to recieve from God!!!!
In Psalms 131 there is a very good example of this... "Oh Lord, my heart is not lifted up, my eyes are not raised too high... But I have calmed and quieted my soul like a weaned child with its mother, my soul is like the weaned child this is within me". Weaning means living in stillness with unfulfilled desires. It is a mask of maturity. But weaning is not an easy process, as some of you mothers know, it takes time and effort to wean a child. But the child soon learns, and they realise that a mother is not just a need meeter, but also a person.
The psalmist says this is a picture of my soul, that they have learned to still their heart, they have been on a spiritual weaning process, where they have been at their mercy, and have come to a point where they do not only need to have their desires and demands meet. God is not just a person who meets our needs, but He is sooo much more!!!!
There are sooo many examples around us each day that could be just God trying to speak to us!! But our spiritual ears and eyes are closed and deaf to them. Our minds are disturbed with commotion around us that makes it very hard to hear and see what He is showing us!! It makes it very difficult to discern if they are messages from God or not.
We not only need to keep our mind free of all the garbbage that we tent to entertain in our thoughts, like..... 'how do people see me?', 'how successful will I be?', 'what will happen tomorrow?', we get our minds lost in our past, in the future, on so many things that we have no control over what so ever. We need to learn to stop entertaining that sorta stuff, and allow ourselves to be open and ready to hear from God... "Peace be still"!!!!!!!!! It is sooo important to be still and quiet. And not only in our everyday things, but also to set aside time to be still and quiet specifially before God.
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