Day 5 Learning To Slow Down

Keeping busy is one of the oldest tricks in the book.  One writer suggests that we fill our calendars because we want to.  To come to the point where I’m left all by myself, no friend to visit, book to read, TV to watch, music to listen to can be quite scary for some of us.  Keeping busy allows me to play the game that everything is fine without learning to 'check in'.  However, here's the problem. God doesn’t want my busyness – He wants me, but we often miss the point.  As a result, our lives quickly can become unbalanced, our priorities can be forgotten and our hearts are not in tune.  How many know what its like to hear a voice inside your head telling you a temptation to pursue or a mind that races from one thing to the next.  There are so many competing voices that demand our attention and it is takes practice to learn to turn off the 'noise' in our lives.  Getting to the place where I can listen to God's voice in my life takes devotion and focus. I remember one of the first things on Jordan's report card was the very word  'focus'.  Back in kindergarten, the teacher would say ’focus’ to draw attention away from what the kids were doing and the training was amazing.  We need to learn focus, focus on the right voice to listen to, the voice of our Shepherd. The longing of my heart is to be so in tune with Him that following becomes natural.

In Philippians 3:10, Paul's passionate pursuit was to know Jesus so deeply. If you are ready to go deeper, if you long for intimacy with our Lord Jesus, if you want to be more profoundly aware of His presence, as do I, then this message is for you!  It was Jesus who said of the Pharisees in John 5:37  And the Father who sent me has himself testified concerning me. You have never heard his voice nor seen his form, 38  nor does his word dwell in you, for you do not believe the one he sent. 39  You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me, 40  yet you refuse to come to me to have life.

Paul desired to be intimately acquainted with Christ.  His desire was not to be intimately acquainted with theology as important as that is.  Not intimately acquainted with the church, not even intimately acquainted with evangelism as significant as that is.  Not  even intimately acquainted with the Bible. It was Christ period!  He alone was the goal that He pressed toward.  It is exactly what Jesus had in mind when He gave His sermon on the Mount in Matthew This is a longing of the soul,  not a spiritual high that we are after, I’m not interested in God hype, I want to really become more intimate with Him.  He longs for us to explore and experience those truths that go beyond the obvious, searching for Him in whom all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are found.  Colossians 2:3  He is quite ready to reveal dimensions of truth to those who care enough to ponder, to wait.  Tragically, often we can’t slow down enough to see it happen.