Is Now A Good Time, Lord?

My tendency is to race through life.  I’m a doer.  If I’m not doing, I’m either feeling a lack accomplishment or fearing all my doing will go south.  This informs my prayers.  Too often my God communication consists of, “Lord, help me do all my stuff,” or “Jesus, don’t let me fail.”

    This is not the stuff of rich, quality time with my Creator.

    With this realization, I sit this morning in the mountains called Blue Ridge.  This is northern Georgia.  The family has taken some time off.  I like to get up early and sip coffee with my Bible while everyone else sleeps. Even still, my bend is to think about future doing or present day fears.

    “Did the guys miss me at early morning Bible study this morning?  Are we set with the live streaming for October 23rd’s services?  I’d better text the couple married on Saturday.  How’s the next message series shaping up?  Lord, help me… and Lord save me.”

    And then the fog rolled in.  If you can’t silent your soul here, then your gas pedal is stuck.  The display was only for me.  Everyone else was still in bed.  No cars were grinding their engines coming up the hill.  No sounds of hammers and chainsaws were buzzing in the thick woods below.  This was the Creator visibly displaying His grace before my eyes.  He was grabbing my elusive attention.

    “Know that the Lord is God.  It is he who made us, and we are his.  Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise;  give thanks to him and praise his name.”  (Ps. 100)   “Alan… just dwell.  Sit.  Listen.”  I wanted to immediately post my thoughts or write a blog.  “Nope.  Not now.  Just wait.  Be still.  Know ME!”

     Oh what little time I give to just sit, dwell, inhabit, and be with my God.  Hurry and fear rob my need to just be.  But His slow, deliberate ways were echoed in the creeping fog enveloping the mountain.  He was engulfing my soul in the same way.

    “Lord, is now a good time to dwell?”  Funny how the morning silence became a loud yes.  If I don’t dwell now, I may never.  The mountain tops are vital to inform the everyday valleys where busy and failure loom.
    

     And now a few hours after the caffeine has jolted my silence and the mountain cloud has dissipated, I write.  I need to remember before the doing and worry takes back over.  Without these times and without remembering, the doing and worry will sink me.