sabbatical

okay, so i have really been praying about this...

i've know for some time that i need to take time to really hear God and get to know Him, discern His voice, learn to be obedient, learn self control. at our family camp weekend, our speaker taught out of Job--some amazing stuff. it really convicted me of how flipant i am when addressing the creator of the universe, how lightly i take that He delights in meeting with me, in being my friend!

i left the week with further desire to KNOW him. in fact, our exercise at the wrap-up session was to choose one word and write it on a stone, a reminder of what we were going to do with the knowledge and insight we'd aquired. "know" was the word i chose.

i've been slowly cutting things out of my life that are keeping me from knowing God more intimately. i am putting things into my life that encourage that goal. i have been trying to figure out where this blog "lands."

i wrote a few days ago questioning "why" i am even writing and although i had several people affirm me, i really think i'm missing something crucial here. i certainly wasn't fishing for compliments or anything. i have some wonderful new and growing friendships and i don't want to neglect those. in fact, more than anything i want to be intentional about them.


anyway. i got this devotional today and i just had to laugh, because it coupled two ideas that have been coming to mind a lot lately.



Author: Elisabeth Elliot
Source: A Lamp For My Feet
Scripture Reference: Psalm 46:10

Shut Up and Know

"Do thou thyself but hold thy tongue for one day, and on the morrow how much clearer are thy purpose and duties," wrote Thomas Carlyle. The psalmist wrote (in Psalm 46) of great cataclysms, noise, war, destruction. What is the man of God supposed to do in the middle of all that? One thing above all else: "Be still and know that I am God" (Ps 46:10 AV). Simply shut up for a change. It is amazing what the quiet holding of the soul before the Lord will do to the external and seemingly uncontrollable tumult around us. It is in that stillness that the Voice will be heard, the only voice in all the universe that speaks peace to the deepest part of us.


No other voice than Thine has ever spoken,O Lord, to me--
No other words but Thine the stillness broken Of life's lone sea.
There openeth the spirit's silent chamber No other hand--
No other lips can speak the language tender, Speech of the Fatherland.

(T.S.M., from Hymns of Ter Steegen and Others, Frances Bevan)


i think i'm going to take a break from this blog. i invite you, if you read these words, to contact me and i would love to schedule a regular time to meet and talk and pray. this blogging world is great in the sense that it allows for mass dissemination of information and opinions, etc. but the thing i want now is to invest my time getting to know some of you, one on one. and really, wherever you are, because i have no idea who reads this, i want to get to know you if you'd let me. there is a reason God brought you here.

you can leave a comment and i'll contact you (you can delete the comment if it has something you don't want "out there" and i'll still be able to see the info). or you can email me if you have my address. or you can call me.

i will continue to blog on my family blog and to read blogs and pray. i am in NO WAY saying blogs are bad--i am calling my own motives into question. i would like to be back at some point, in a way that honors and glorifies God. thanks for understanding.

your sister in Christ,