Listen

2 Thessalonians 1:11-12 (New International Version)

 11With this in mind, we constantly pray for you, that our God may count you worthy of his calling, and that by his power he may fulfill every good purpose of yours and every act prompted by your faith. 12We pray this so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.^[a]

Footnotes:

1. 2 Thessalonians 1:12 Or God and Lord, Jesus Christ

 You know there was a time when I preached the word of the Lord to everyone and anyone that would listen.  I would preach at every opportunity and with zeal baby…lol  Then one day I “heard” myself speaking and said “man I talk too much and sometimes don’t know what the heck that I am talking about”.  I started to feel like I was talking not for the Lord but I was talking to hear myself talk.  I started really liking people coming to hear me speak not the Lord.  It got to the point were the Word wasn’t speaking to me but I was still speaking.  I totally remember the point where I actually had nothing to say, there was no inspiration, no inkling, no nothing.  I mean everything was empty.  It was like looking into a cup and realizing that there was nothing in it.  Yet I said something.  I had to save face and keep these people listening to me.  I could feel people looking at me like “what in the world is she saying” and felt that they knew I was faking it.  So my inside voice said that the Lord is not speaking to me and that I needed to stop talking and listen.  With complete clarity and without a moments hesitation I knew what was said to me was true and my mouth shut.  That was many years ago.  It didn’t mean to me that the Lord had left me.  The Lord will never leave me.  He already told me that, on several occasions. J  It meant that my time of speaking had come to a point where it is now my time of listening.  So when people speak to me of the Lord, I listen.  When I see or am shown scripture I read and listen.  I don’t speak about or talk about religion, I listen and quietly, patiently wait for the time when the Lord tells me to speak again.  This has been a lesson that I have learned or needed to learn in many instances and thank you Lord for being patient with me.  It is an ongoing learning process to listen and not speak with my Master, children, family, work associates, and strangers.  In the back of my mind I always think I know and no one else need tell me but when I start to speak I hear the emptiness of my words and feel the frustration of those who are talking to me and so I apologize and listen.  Because what I don’t know is how it will impact me to listen and how it will impact them to be heard.

 “Non-doing defines doing. Sitting in stillness invites people to move. Getting out of the way allows people to fill space with their passion. Letting go of expectations leaves room for responsibility to come forth. All of this is integrity. Every piece of doing requires the strong presence of non-doing to anchor it.

 Stifling every impulse to intervene, to give directions and orders leaves space for others to design their lives. You can create a container and then stand by and watch it fill and teem with life. You don’t resist the natural movements of groups of people co-creating their futures. Instead you work on your own inability to be still, to want to own the outcomes, to want to invest your ego.

 This is not your show. You are holding space, embodying space and being empty and full at the same time. If they thank you in the closing circle, you have not done enough.”

 The Tao of Holding Space by Chris Corrigan (passed along to me by my friend namaste~)

 So I speak when I am spoken to and am thankfully thankful for the moments when I can listen.

MV’s esclave