A Still, Small Voice

This Sunday we heard testimony from Missy about how God is at work in her life. She spoke about feeling lost in the hectic rhythm of day-to-day life, about feeling spiritually lost, and about feeling as if she were in a void sometimes. I’m sure everyone has felt that way at least once in their lives. In the midst of our busy days, how do we find our way back onto the path? How do we find time to get un-lost when all our responsibilities are pressing down upon us?

Missy testified powerfully about the effect taking five minutes out for God can have on our day and on our lives. By spending a few moments in quiet meditation at the beginning of the day, she found a space to be alone with God, and the effect of having that space for relationship spread through the rest of her life.

She also spoke about the signs in her life that led her to slow down and take time for God, time to find her way back onto the path again. For her, these signs were physical illnesses. The idea that God wants us to take a break at times is a really important lesson that we as a society often forget. When people run into adversity in their lives, the often-heard message is one that urges us to keep going, work harder and –whatever we do – not to give up. But maybe that isn’t always what we need to do, maybe we shouldn’t always be forging blindly onward. Instead we may need, as Missy did, to take time out and discern what God wants for us in our lives. It might be that we need to move sideways to get onto the path, and that charging straight ahead is exactly what we shouldn’t do.

One could say that Sunday’s service was exactly the opposite of the still space where Missy found God: full of music and words and reflection and speech. One could say that, but it would be wrong. We are called to seek God in all things and in all the manifold ways we seek God, we find that stillness. That still, small voice within the chaos; that still, small voice that leads us home.