Listen, Go, duck and cover!

When the spirit of truth comes you will be led to the complete truth... (John 16)

What matters is to listen attentively to the spirit and go obediently where we are being led, whether to a joyful or a painful place... Henri Nouwen

I was so excited when I found out that the Henri Nouwen Society was redoing their website and had a daily devotional I could sign up for. I love me some Nouwen! Low and behold, this was my first devotion. He doesn't say a lot, (just think how that would poke you in the eye) when a little does so much. I could break this down and really go crazy with this one sentence. I could even make it shorter:

Listen attentively, go obediently, 

get ready, it's fixen to hit the fan!

This very well maybe the reason we don't listen! We know that when we listen to the spirit we are going to have to do something! For me right now, it's 'Being'. Now don't get all cocky with me, this is not something that I'm good at, know how to do or am enjoying at this point of my life. I'm a doer! I am known by what I do. Haven't I said this before? I guess I'm still trying to convince myself or find a reason to make 'being' null and void. Not working is it? 

When we listen, we will hear. When we hear the truth, we must go, or not, and end up in the belly of a huge fish! Heard that one before huh? Inside the fish, it's dark and smelly and dead stuff is floating around. If you stay in there long enough, you start to get use to the place. Friend, God will let you stay there as long as you want too! Set up house keeping to do list's, move the dead wood around for a better view of the moon at night! If you listen, you will hear! Then you will need to go where you are led, no matter where that is. From my own experience I'm going to have to say it's almost always to a painful place first! The one thing I like about that is I get it out of the way, so that the joy can come rushing in. In fact, going to take care of the painful stuff makes the joy even more joyful! 

So I encourage you to sit down and listen, read a psalm and then just sit there and see what God says. It may take sometime, but for me, I'm not doing anything anyway! I'm learning to listen...attentively.