There are no two ways about
it, the occupied soul is one that has no room for God. And it doesn’t even matter how great and
marvelous the things are which occupy it. They are taking up space that was designed
for God, space that was created to be filled by him alone. These things are consuming precious
time and energy and attention that needs to be given to the life of the Spirit
within and around us.
Thus, an emptying is
necessary. Or, at the very least, a
stilling and a quieting must take place.
If we want to dwell with God, if we want to enjoy his presence and hear
his voice and be aware of his activity in our lives, we must begin the process
of calming our souls. This is likely to
involve some silence and solitude and prayer.
It is likely to require a place that is out of the normal traffic flow
of our lives, one without noise and frenzy and activity. We must allow the turbulent waters of the soul to become still and quiet, so we might be able to see what is
underneath. So we might be able to hear
the still, small voice of the Spirit as it speaks to us in our depths.
The only question is: Will
we make the time and the space necessary for this to happen? If not, we should never expect that our souls
would be anything other than occupied.
O Lord, forgive us when we become occupied; when we get too full of
ourselves that we get a little too big for our britches. Forgive us when we fall in love with our own
observations and opinions and begin to take ourselves far too seriously. Forgive us when we begin to think that we can
handle things on our own, or make things happen for ourselves. For when we do these things, we take up all
the space and leave no room for you to move and to act.
No comments:
Post a Comment