Rest.

"For this is what ADONAI ELOHIM, the Holy One of Israel says: "Returning and resting is what will save you; calmness and confidence will make you strong---but you want none of this! 'No!' you say. 'We will flee on horseback!"  Therefore you will surely flee.  And, 'We will ride swift ones!' So your pursuers will be swift.  A thousand will flee at the threat of one, you will all flee at the threat of five, until you are isolated, like a flagstaff, on a mountaintop, like a banner on a hill."

Yet ADONAI is just waiting to show you favor, he will have pity on you from on high; for ADONAI is a God of justice; happy are all who wait for Him!  Isaiah 30:15-18

My soul waits in silence for God alone; my salvation comes from him.  He alone is my rock and salvation, my stronghold; I won't be greatly moved.  Psalm 62:1

Throughout my life I have always fought the urge to be doing something, listening to something, eating something, going somewhere, and even taking "purposeful naps" which would then enable me to accomplish more later. When I was first married I spent much of my down time with the TV blaring.  As time went on and I found myself at home with the kids, I watched TV "for the noise" while I did my chores.  Then I got tired of TV and I lost interest in most of the programs so I switched to radio.  The radio was on all the time in my house and the only time I switched it off was to play the piano.  If I was cooking, cleaning or driving I can guarantee that I was surrounded with sound and activity.  If the radio wasn't blasting, then music was playing in the background.  I even kept the radio or a CD playing at night while I slept.  Still today I walk around the house doing my work with ear buds in my ear listening to my iPod.

There was a time when I experimented with meditation.  But even then I didn't meditate for the sake of meditation, but rather I used it as a tool that I hoped would bring physical healing.  The book I was reading about meditation treated it as a prayer style.  I followed the directions in the book to the letter.  I set a timer for 20 minutes.  I would sit in comfortable chair, relax and think one thought.  I would often choose my favorite psalm, "God is my refuge and my strength, a very present help in trouble."  But instead of meditating and bringing my mind back to that verse I would begin to focus on the tick tick sound of the timer, or the sound of the heater, or the ticking of the clock.  Then I would begin to think about how stupid meditation was, that it would never bring me healing, and that this whole thing was a dumb idea.  Then I would try to guess how much longer it would be until the timer would ding.  I was an utter failure at meditation because I was unwilling to learn to master the quiet.

But the only way we can learn to hear God speaking is in resting, in calmness, and in quiet.  But I'm am like the people of Israel that God was speaking to, and I say, "No!  I will flee on horseback, ride the swift ones!"  Better to be DOING something, anything than to wait and rest in quietness and calm.  I don't know what I am so afraid of.

Now that I've become aware of my insatiable desire for sound and distraction, I have begun to change things.  I rarely watch TV and I no longer listen to the radio.  My iPod still presents a temptation, but I'm careful about what it is that I listen to.  I turn off the radio and iPod while I sleep, and only use my iPod during times of wakefulness or pain.  I read more, and I sometimes just sit in silence.

What I'm hoping is that I will trade all that noise for the superior sound of God's voice.  Sometimes I think that he is just waiting for me to shut up so that he can get in a word or two.

When we were training my first pup, Sasha, one of the first commands we taught her was, "Rest!"  When I first heard the command, "Rest," I thought that it meant that the dog should go to sleep.  But what "rest" really means is, "Go do whatever you want, whatever makes you happy.  You are no longer under orders, there is no command.  Go and be a dog."  I wonder if when God tells us to rest he means the same type of thing.  Go do what makes you happy.  Go act like a human.  You aren't under any orders right now.  Rest.  Now when Sasha heard the command, "Rest," it did not mean that she could go eat shoes, or chew on the couch, or dig through the trash.  But within the confines of the house rules she was free to do whatever she pleased.

I would love to experience quietness for the sake of quiet and Sasha's kind of rest.  Nothing on the TV, radio or iPod can compare with that.