I'm Back

Yes, I’m back*.

At least, I think I’m back.

I leave the large asterisk because it’s been good – oh so good – to not be blogging these past few weeks. I’ve enjoyed the space. I’ve written in my journal, I’ve done some Deep Thinking, I took my kids to the beach. (I also packed and moved and sorted and sold. But that’s a post for another day.)

When I look back over the last few years of my life, I see God consistently teaching me about the need for quiet if I'm serious about knowing Him. And I don’t necessarily mean outer quiet. When I lived in San Diego – a big, busy city – and worked as a TV news producer – a hectic, adrenaline-fueled job – I used to blame my spiritual inadequacy on the lack of quiet in my daily, external life. “It’s just so crazy here in Southern California, Lord,” I would write in my journal. “There are people everywhere, schedules are insane. I can’t be quiet here. I need some time by a lake, where the pace is slow and I can hear the leaves dance in the breeze. I need a job that doesn’t fry me crispy. I need Minnesota. Then I will be disciplined and go deep and know You.”

And then – be careful what you wish for – God gave me Minnesota. Specifically, He situated me in a small town, where life moved at a glacial pace, in a beautiful home next to a lake.

Ha-ha, God. Ha-ha.

To my horror, I discovered my soul was just as noisy in Minnesota as it was in California. I had the space and the time and the external beauty – but I had just as much mind-litter as I had before, if not more.

That prompted an interesting discussion between me and God. And so I stumbled upon the twin spiritual disciplines of silence and restraint.

I wrote this in my journal August 2006.

If I had to sum up what God is teaching me right now, it would be the disciplines of withdrawal – secrecy, silence and simplicity.

It began back in April, when I fasted from sugar while [my husband] was in Indonesia. I got a taste (no pun intended) of the power inherent in refraining. It continued when I felt God telling me to stay quiet, for a time, about what he was revealing to me about our future. And it is carrying on now, as I’m studying Chuck Swindoll’s book “So, You Want to Be Like Christ?”

This much I've learned: It’s incredibly hard for me to be quiet. Not only do I find it difficult to control my tongue, I find it almost impossible to be still – outwardly or inwardly. I am always, always on the go.

And this is not a good thing. It’s never been a good thing, but as I look upon our life now and our future – how we may be on the verge of entering a busier sphere – it scares me.

Bottom line: If I can’t be quiet [in the small town where we lived], where can I be quiet?

This learning-to-be-still thing – it’s still a process for me. Which is why I’m both excited and anxious to return to my blog. It’s why I leave the asterisk. Because I’ve vowed to God – and to my husband, who watches this part of my life like a hawk – that I will not let this blog take over. If it starts to weigh too heavily on my mental and spiritual scales again, I’ll walk away. Permanently. It wouldn’t be easy. But I want to taste and see that God is good during this lifetime, and see Him write His story on the hearts of my children. If I miss that – even though I have a multitude of witty or informational or insightful blog posts to my name – I’ve missed everything.

In “The Pursuit of Man,” A.W. Tozer wrote, “May not the inadequacy of much of our spiritual experience be traced back to our habit of skipping through the corridors of the Kingdom like children in the market place, chattering about everything, but pausing to learn the value of nothing? ... God has not bowed to our nervous haste nor embraced the methods of our machine age. It is well that we accept the hard truth now: The man who would know God must give time to Him."

So here's to the the balancing act. May God give me the wisdom and the discipline to live this moment in awareness of Him.

See you tomorrow. When I cover the urgent, pressing issue: Why are so many states requiring children to go back to school in the middle of summer? For cryin' out loud...