Which One Do We Listen to?

Which voice will you choose to tune in to today? The quiet one? Or the shouting one?

Everything about this season screams "more" and "faster". While Jesus is inviting us to "less" and "slower".

One says 'You are not enough!", while simultaneously shouting that, "You need to be more!". But if we shut out that loudness and really sit under the lights in the quiet, there is a voice that tells us He is enough. He is enough for us to feel whole, He is enough for us to feel peace. That quiet voice also assures you that He will provide enough for You even if you are pouring out on others. There is a delicate balance at Christmas of giving and recieving, of filling up and pouring out.

When we listen to the shouting voice we feel out of control, out of balance, rushed, or overwhelmed. Any of those sound familiar? Me too.

One voice leads to contentment and the other to striving.

I want contentment. I know it's available.

"For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope." Jeremiah 29:11 NKJV

I am so familiar with this verse, I mean it's on everything in Hobby Lobby, and every suggested graduation present on Amazon, but I've never really seen the NKJV until today. I love that it uses the phrase, "the thoughts that I think toward you". Today the idea of God's thoughts towards me made me think about my thoughts toward Him.

I read this verse in 2 Corinthians yesterday while looking for another, but today it seemed to resonate with this one in Jeremiah.

Paul is talking to the church in Corinth:

"But I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ."

Isn't that how he always seems to get me, leading my thoughts. My enemy wants to do exactly what he did to Eve because it worked. He got her to think things that weren't true about God. That loud voice we hear pushing for more, demanding we be more, that isn't God. In this season that is supposed to be entirely about God, I sometimes find that I can't hear Him for all the noise.

That is what our enemy wants, he wants us to mistake the loud voice for God's voice.

This is a simple invitation. Sit by your tree. Ask God to speak His thoughts about you. He has thoughts of peace for you, He has plans that won't leave you empty. Listen.

Turn your thoughts to Him until the noise goes away.

Now I know we can't just sit in front of our tree all day. There are real things to get done.

And that is just it, I want to do the real things. God can direct you to what really matters, the things that really are necessary and help you let the others go, but we have to c hoose to listen in stillness to hear Him.

Let's make a habit to look at the lights and ask God what His thoughts are, and then let them inform ours. Then maybe we can arrive at the end of this season probably still exhausted, but with a sense of peace at having not missed God in it.