April 26 (Psalm 62:5)

For God alone, O my soul, wait in silence, for my hope is from him.  (ESV)

A friend once asked me how I could stand to eat alone.  While I have lively interactions with friends and love my family dearly, I do enjoy being alone sometimes.  I am quite content to eat alone, hike alone, or sit alone even in a crowded place.  Being alone allows me to be quiet and commune with God.

Now, lest you think I am a monk in disguise, please know that this rarely happens any more.  My life, likely very similar to yours, is a blooming, buzzing confusion of sensory overload.  Even when I am alone these days, I am find it nearly impossible not to be doing something, catching up on something, reading something.  Access to multiple email accounts, news feeds, and social media updates 24-7 gives me the unprecedented ability to be and do everything all the time.

Friends, this is insanity.  This mentality of doing it all is destroying our schools and our families.  It is ruining relationships, and none more so than our relationship with God, Who refuses to compete with Trivia Crack and Twitter.  If our hope is truly in the Lord, we must learn to silence our souls.

Father, I cry out to you.  Stop me.  Stop me from running to this and that, hurrying to do one thing so I can get on to another.  Turn my eyes toward you and away from the tyranny of the urgent and the attractive and immediate temptations that beckon me.  I truly want only You.  In the words of the old hymn, I pray that You would turn my eyes toward Jesus.  Let me look full in His wonderful face that the things of earth may grow dim in the light of His glory and grace.  Amen.

Copyright © 2015 by Steven R. Perkins