(From Henri J.M. Nouwen's Here and Now, p. 20)When we dare to trust that we are never alone but that God is always with us, always cares for us, and always speaks to us, then we can gradually detach ourselves from the voices that make us guilty [dwelling on the past] or anxious [fearing the future] and thus allow ourselves to dwell in the present moment. This is a very hard challenge because radical trust in God is not obvious. Most of us distrust God. Most of us think of God as a fearful, punitive authority or as an empty, powerless nothing. Jesus’ core message was that God is neither a powerless weakling nor a powerful boss, but a lover, whose only desire is to give us what our hearts most desire.
To pray is to listen to that voice of love. That is what obedience is all about. The word “obedience” comes from the Latin word ob-audire, which means to listen with great attentiveness. Without listening, we become “deaf” to the voice of love. The Latin word for deaf is surdus. To be completely deaf is to be absurdus, yes, absurd. When we no longer pray, no longer listen to the voice of love that speaks to us in the moment, our lives become absurd lives in which we are thrown back and forth between the past and the future.
If we could just be, for a few minutes each day, fully where we are, we would indeed discover that we are not alone and that the One who is with us wants only one thing: to give us love.
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John Piper - Wartime Lifestyle Check out this video on Cockrell's blog from back in January. I use goodsearch.com rather than google and this was the first video that popped up when I did a search for "Already Not Yet John Piper"
Okay...I just got still enough to read this. Obedience is being still and listening to God. I'm attempting to practice just that definition of obedience today. My sabbath last week was successful, but is not easy to repeat. If it takes 21 days to make a habbit, does that mean that taking a true sabbath day will take 21 weeks to become habbit?
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