There is too much noise in my cave!

I read the most unfortunate and disheartening verses today in a very brief opportunity of quietness in my life:

“And he said, ‘Go out and stand on the mount before the Lord.’ And behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind tore the mountains and broke in pieces the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. And after the wind, an earthquake. And after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire, the sound of a low whisper. And when Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his cloak and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. And behold, there came a voice to him and said, ‘what are you doing here, Elijah?’”

This is an unfortunate text because my life is filled with constant noise. Have you ever stopped to consider how noisy your life is every day? From the sound of my iPhone alarm every morning, to the light going off at the end of the day – nothing but noise. Nearly every morning I wake up to my alarm (with a quick follow-up of the voice of my 1-year-old son, Eli). By the time my alarm goes off in the morning Eli has been asleep longer than he was awake the day before.

I leave my house on most days to meet students for one-on-one discipleship at local coffee shops here where I live – I love this part of my job. I love being able to encourage these young men that God has placed in my life. Sometime around brunch I’ll end up in my office – an office I share with two, sometimes three, other people; people whom I enjoy working with immensely. You can image the noise. Before I know it the afternoon has flown by and it’s home for dinner to see my wife and son. I love my family. I play with Eli for a while and then he’s off to bed. Finally, Cary and I have some time to unwind a little with a sitcom or two. Noise…from the sitcom…not Cary; great conversation with your spouse isn’t noise.

Aren’t all of our days similar to this? Busy. Noisy. Constantly on the go. More than likely we’re doing good things too, right? What about the “still small voice” of God? For a long time I worked hard at stealing time from my schedule during the day for a few moments with the Lord. My spiritual life really became more like multitasking. I recently heard a pastor refer to multitasking as telling the first one to get your attention that they’re not important enough for all of your attention. Wow. My multitasking spiritual life was really sending a message to God that He wasn’t important enough for “all” of my attention. This same pastor said, we get so far away from God that we can’t hear Him or have any sense of Him in our life. We get so far away from Him that we aren’t able to hear His still small voice. We get so busy that we equate busyness for intimacy with God.

I think one of the most difficult things we could do in this life is try and find a place where we can get alone in total solitude. Think about. Where could you go, right now? I’m thinking about my day…1-year-old at home (not asking him to stop acting like a 1-year-old!), share an office with 2, sometimes 3 people (can’t ask them to leave)…ideas? I could rent a hotel room for myself…expensive. I could yell fire somewhere to force everyone else to leave, but that feels like a bad idea! I can’t take a retreat into the mountains everyday…I still have to go to work.

So what can I do? I’m constantly amazed to hear about the spiritual giants of church history and their tenacious pursuit of God, men waking up before the sun to pray and read Scripture. Luther once wrote about his need to spend 2 hours a day in prayer before the Lord. These stories make me wonder…how tenacious am I? How tenacious are you? Do I really want to make time for God? Am I keeping Him at a distance, willingly? I can’t control a lot of the noise in my life...some of it I wouldn't change for anything, but I can get up before it starts.

"There is not in the world a kind of life more sweet and delightful, than that of a continual conversation with God. Those only can comprehend it who practice and experience it." -Brother Lawrence

God came to Elijah in a still…small…voice.