From Knowing to Understanding…
I have been doing a LOT of driving lately with 6 of my kids in 3 different schools, and for me drive time is thinking time. I have so many ideas, thoughts, brain storms, prayer sessions all going on while I have no way to write them down…
I listen to books, podcasts, rosaries, praise and worship, 80’s and 70’s jams to dance in my seat, and sometimes I just listen to the silence when the baby snoozes and no one is in the car yet.
This past week in my driving I had this realization of something the Lord is teaching me and I wanted to try to articulate it and share it with you.
There are so many things in our faith we KNOW…so many truths about God, so many lessons and parables and mysteries that we have knowledge of, to the point that if someone tried to teach it to us, we may even say “yes, I know” (similar to the teen who you ask to clean their room and they say “Yea Yea mom I know” in a sort of offending their intellect sort of way…)
Yet it hit me this week that so often we may KNOW (in our head) but very little of what we KNOW do we truly UNDERSTAND (in our heart) unless we take time to do 3 things…that are rather hard to do when life is loud and busy and you don’t take time to write it down so that you don’t forget.
- We need to Listen to Hear…
Have you ever listened to an audio book and you get to the end of the chapter and have no clue what you just listened to? How about when you read scripture or when you were in a class in college. You were interested in the material but you were so distracted that nothing registered.
To Listen to the Lord in order to hear for me means less interrupting him to tell him what I think He is trying to say, and intentional focused listening. As much as he can shout to me in the car, and speak through music, or a podcast, or the noise…I find what my heart really needs is planned quiet time & stillness. This can be HARD on two levels. Hard to make space for and hard to train your body to do.
I am a talker, a verbal processor, and being still and quiet feel HARD…but to make space to slow down and take time to say “Lord I am here, please open my heart to hear you…” and to listen to hear him in the silence is a gift of the Holy Spirit. Are you willing to sit in the uncomfortable to wait for the whisper like Elijah?
2. We need to Submit…
We need to put ourselves under the mission of God and let go of the things we are clinging to that are causing noise and not growth. I sometimes have a fear that if I submit to the Lord I will lose things that I love because he will think they are not important. Why would the Lord cause me to have interests and passions in order to simply rip them away? To Submit to the Lord is to sit in His presence and give them these things so they do not become idols but rather can remain gifts used for His glory. To submit your to do list, your goals, your dreams, your marriage, your children, your future…to submit to Him takes relationship, trust, surrender, and ultimately GRACE…and when we submit our hearts and hands are emptied of earthly things so that finally we can do the final piece…
3. We need to be Open and Emptied in order to Receive…
As women we were made to be receptive and when we receive what the Lord has He births life into our world. Yet if our world is so loud and we are so focused on control and carrying everything on our plate, or juggling all of the things there is not space to receive what He has for us. Sometimes the provision is physical. Sometimes it is spiritual graces we need in the moment. Sometimes it is consolation to cover us and renew us. All of it matters and without that appointed time to tune in and listen to understand it is so easy to leave the gifts unopened.
So as we get close to the Advent Season what can you do to cultivate and move your relationship with the Lord from your Head to your Heart?
As the world hurries up…how might you be able to slow down?
What rules have you followed without understanding that through prayer may draw you deeper in relationship with the Lord?
Where do you need to surrender (Hint: its’s most likely the places you find yourself saying quietly to yourself “I can’t do this”)
What might He have for you to receive?
