That's Irritating

"But in a sense I welcome irritation. Irritation keeps you alert. It keeps you from settling down too long in one spot. For a speaker, it forces him or her to find new approaches, new insights. Who knows, if people get enough sand in their shell they may, like the oyster, make a pearl. Without the challenge of irritation it is possible to answer questions eloquently that no one is asking, to invent cures for disease that no one has." - Dr. Maurice Berquist, The Miracle and Power of Blessing


Well that is certainly a different way of looking at life's irritations than I have seen before. I know that God speaks to us in many different ways but I have certainly never thought of life's irritations as a being a message from the Lord. I have just thought they were irritating. I guess I am going to have to pay closer attention when God is trying to tell me something. 


I found this book on the Two Listener's website this morning and it looks like a veritable gold mine of blog posts so stay tuned. 

Hello..... can you hear Me?

“The moment you wake up each morning, all your wishes and hopes for the day rush at you like wild animals. And the first job each morning consists in shoving it all back; in listening to that other voice, taking that other point of view, letting that other, larger, stronger, quieter life come flowing in.” - C.S. Lewis

That is one profound and amazing thought right there. And I think it holds the key to living the better, happier life. "They" may say that you are what you eat but I think you are what you think is closer to the truth. (Or at least I hope so because otherwise I'm comprised mainly of chocolate and ice cream, cashews, cherry twizzlers and fiber one chocolate pop tarts.) In fact I think it's spot on the truth. The key is to hold not only your wishes and hopes at bay, but your fears and your worries and your distractions as well until you can stop and listen long enough to hear that "other, larger, stronger, quieter" voice's comfort and guidance and inspiration. Some folks say that we can't hear God speaking anymore like our ancestors did. I think it's just that it's gotten way to noisy for us to hear him anymore. We're drowning him out with all the noise and the "stuff" in our lives and in our world. The trick is to learn to hold it all back long enough to get quiet for a little bit of time every day so that we can pay attention and then we will hear. God hasn't stopped talking, we've just quit listening. Or we've tuned our ears only to hear other sounds, other voices. And they're not the ones who can or will bring us peace. Shhhh.... are you listening?