Learning to Listen

For the past couple weeks, I have been having so many thoughts running through my head.  Not just the good kind of inspirational thoughts that cause that kind of excitement, but I've been having thoughts containing a huge range of topics and emotions.  At first, it was exciting because it got me thinking about a lot of things, and was motivating me to accomplish more things in my daily life.  Gradually, my head was getting full to the brim and it was driving me a little nuts!  Today I started asking myself, what is going on here?  I can control the speed of my own thoughts, can't I?  So why am I making myself anxious and stressed out by taking a breather and putting many of these thoughts I have on hold so I don't overcrowd my brain?

Then, it hit me:  It was God trying to talk to me!  Although I feel like I have been becoming tremendously closer to God, I feel that a major thing I definitely need to work on in my relationship with Him is learning to listen to Him.  Since so often my life is on hyper-drive, I forget to take moments throughout each day to listen to what God is telling me and look towards Him for guidance.  I realized today that God kept trying to speak to me these past couple weeks, but me not realizing it, wasn't really paying attention and instead was focusing on my own thoughts...leading to me having all these thoughts and ideas tumbling through my head!  I go on auto-pilot so often in my daily routines it sometimes becomes easy to lose grasp of the Lord's voice and end up trying to guide yourself. 

Once I realized that all these mixed emotions was God trying to get through to me, I grabbed my NKJV Study Bible and went to the arboretum.  I laid down a towel under the shade of a gorgeous tree by the stream at the arboretum, and then laid down on the towel and took a couple moments to just feel the nice summer breeze.  Once I relaxed myself, I talked to God for a long time about many things that I needed guidance with.  I then listened.  Once I took that time to clear my mind and only allow myself to hear His voice, things became much clearer.  Then, I looked up certain subjects in my Bible's index that had to do with the things I felt I needed guidance for in my life that I had talked to God about.  I spent about an hour just reading different verses in the Bible, and I got my answers, and now my mind feels at ease.  The verses I read clarified a lot of things for me, and the solutions seemed clear.  How I felt after I remembered to turn to God when I need guidance and after I reminded myself to try to listen to His voice everyday, something Pastor Bob said was sticking in my mind:  "When your values are clear, your decisions are easy." 

This was so true for me!  I know its so very hard in our hectic lives today to always try to listen to God and to remember to do so, but I hope this blog post was a helpful reminder that we all need and deserve quality alone time with the Lord.  I'm so thankful for the joy and guidance He continuously brings to me and the other people in my life!