I don’t know if it’s because I’ve raised more than a handful of children, but I have a hard time sitting in a quiet room. I’m actually sensitive to loud, chaotic noise. Still, focused or ambient noise, such as the TV, music, or YouTube videos in the background, seems to bring a sense of comfort or security—or something else.
I am not exempt from living in the noise. I know the constant buzz can be an easy way to avoid the things that matter–the unseen things, the sacred things.
I’ve been doing morning pages1 almost every day for the past 5 years, but they’ve evolved into something I didn’t intend, nor do I want.
I turned them into prayers, which is great but the prayers turned to lament and worry. Morning pages are meant to be a dump of all the things weighing on the mind. No filter.
But what this has done is opened up a door to spending every morning complaining to God about myself, my failures, and things that aren’t going my way. I find I repeat the same complaints over and over, day after day.
All this has done is slowly solidify the negative things I believe about myself, rather than what God says about me and the potential I have. I haven’t taken any time to listen.
The noise drowns out the voice in my head, reminding me of my lack and failure to measure up, I think. But it also drowns out God’s voice. It further stifles me from taking action in the places God has called me to. Then I just continue to repeat the same patterns, and nothing changes.
Don’t get me wrong. There is a time for lament. But not every day. Not as a way of life or a habitual prayer life. If we focus only on lament and worry, they take up more and more space in our minds and eventually keep us stuck. It’s one thing to lay down the worry and sorrow and leave it with God. But to live there day after day isn’t good for anyone.
We need to position ourselves to hear God’s voice more than the world’s, Satan’s, and that of our flesh. That’s a lot of competition, and we don’t always make it easy for His voice to break through all that noise. Yet that’s exactly what we need to do. Lessen the noise of the tv shows, the podcasts, the ambient noise. That doesn’t mean we need to sit in silence all the time. Sometimes, yes.
It does mean we need to read God’s Word and turn it over in our minds throughout the day. That’s what it means to meditate on God’s Word.
Let’s start with an area of worry or struggle and see what God’s Word says about it. Then, rather than focus on the worry, we focus on the Word.
Savoring Him,
Christin
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