Be Still...

Last night was a good night.

After spending my whole entire day from 7am-11pm running all around the world, I ended up at a good friend's house to work on my car a little bit and just chat. Working on my car is usually something I do for me. I do it when I have some free time and I just want to do something that is basically mindless. We worked on the car until about 12:30am and then after that just stood under the stars outside and had a real honest conversation.

This is what I admitted to him and myself...

"I am too busy... When I'm not busy, I immediately find something to do so I am busy. The problem is, relationships in my life have suffered from my busyness. That is a real shame. When it is all said and done, my cars, my resume, my money, none of that is going with me. But these people I interact with... now that is something that will come, that is where the time should be spent."

I find myself, a day later, with a day that isn't so busy. I'll be honest, I am bored out of my mind. I'm already contemplating heading over to get my hair cut, then perhaps I will go to the gym for a while before I find out what some friends are doing so I can go hang out with them. The problem is, when I'm not busy, when there isn't so much noise, I am confronted with myself. I am just alone with God and my thoughts. Sometimes that's enough to make us say to ourselves, "wow... I really don't like that about me," or "what was I thinking?" You know, all of those questions you don't get to ask yourself and definitely not think about throughout all of the hurriedness.

As my life has gone on, I have learned more and more about the discipline of meditation. It is the hardest discipline for me to learn. Learning to pray has been easy for me in the hours and hours I spend alone in the car in a week. Learning to read scripture has become a joy for me as I became educated on what exactly it is I'm reading. But learning to shut up and listen to the whisper that God usually shows up in... now that has been difficult.

For some reason I keep thinking of this same verse over and over again. In Psalm 46 verse 10, "Be still and know that I am God..."

Perhaps that is my prayer today... to be still and be aware of God's presence. I'm sure it's something that all of us can try to do a lot more. Starting with me.