Saturday, November 15, 2008

Preoccupied


Don’t you just love it when you get past the clouded symptoms and begin to see what might be causing them?
Such is the case with me, in further reading from Brennan Manning’s book, The Signature of Jesus; Father put His finger on a real nerve.
The following is but a quick quote from much more I want to share possibly later, bottom line, this unveiling from within me was and is so liberating.

Rich

In my personal life the greater part of each year is devoted to writing, thinking, and speaking about God, Jesus, faith, contemplative prayer, the gospel lifestyle, and so forth. It is a curious phenomenon that such noble Christian enterprises distance me from God. (I assume that this is true for all Christian writers, preachers and teachers, as well as songwriters, musicians, and singers). Constantly holding forth about God does not of itself lead to being with God. Writing about God somehow takes me away from directly responding to God in the present moment. Preaching about Jesus somehow clouds my presence to the Reality I am proclaiming. In both situations what is missing is any sense of felt intimacy with God through faith. Yet my beliefs remain vigorous and rooted.”

“Seek first the kingdom of God.” This requires taking time out from family, friends, career, ministry, even ‘doing good’ to enter into the great silence of God.
Alone in that silence, the noise within will subside and the Voice of Love will be heard. Without such silence we will drown in the inner cacophony of dialogues, encounters, meetings, discussions, and conferences where there is much speaking and little listening
.”

2 comments:

silent wings said...

mmm good stuff. I can totally relate to this! I have thought these very thoughts and been perplexed by them before. There is a simple song that Misty Edwards sings (below) that sums up this issue for me and has me wondering how we as believers can share Jesus and encounter His presence simultaneously, and together.

"I don't want to talk about You like You're not in the room
I want to look right at You I want to sing right to You

I believe that You are listening
I believe that You move at the sound of my voice

Give me dove's eyes

Give me undistracted devotion for only You"

Ruth said...

HI Rich,

"Alone in the silence , the noise will subside,... and the voice of Love will be heard."

I can identify with this. It can get very noisy out there when there are so many voices clamoring for our attention - yet His voice can become ever so clear if we would just distance ourselves from the many others, to truly hear His alone.

It looks peculiar to others when we do so - yet we know God often calls us to do exactly this,we will learn to hear His voice, His alone, and not give heed to the many others. It is out of love He directs our every step.

It definitely looked peculiar to many when Father called me to go this direction with Him, all couldn't understand, but I knew that I knew, and yet I went & I am so glad I did!

Ruth
Bless you Rich !