Sunday, November 16, 2008

being versus doing

I was sitting on the beach the other day watching some ducks swimming by and struggling to go against the wind and the waves. (Yes, it was still warm enough to sit on the beach, but not without a warm jacket, gloves, and a blanket.) As i watched the ducks go by I started to think about how what they were doing paralleled things in my own life.

The ducks were working hard and making very slow progress fighting against the wind and the waves. I started to think about how in my own life I can so easily get caught up in doing stuff - really just busy-ness - and yet when make little progress in anything. It was a bit of a realization that sometimes all of our doing isn't what we should be doing. Sometimes we need to just be.

I get busy with doing stuff at church and doing stuff with my friends and doing stuff at work and I forget that sometimes I just need to be. I need to stop all of the busy-ness and just sit. Be still and listen for what God may be trying to tell me. I can't always hear Him when I'm caught up in the busy-ness of life, but when I take time to slow down and just it for a while that's when I hear what He is trying to say.

Really, that's what had happened when I was sitting on the beach the other day. I had stopped in the midst of my busy-ness and just allowed God time to speak when I was listening. It wasn't easy, there were many moments of that time when I just wanted to get up and go do something. But the longer I sat there, the more I realized that I need to learn how to just be sometimes. To just stop and sit and be in God's presence.

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