What’s Your Position?

In reading through Shattered Dreams by Larry Crabb, one of the points that I found significant was that we cannot produce and encounter with God, we can only put ourselves in a position to receive an encounter with God.  How true!

For me, this means time spent in contemplative prayer, journaling, worship, and the two most feared spiritual disciplines of today, silence and solitude.

Whenever I participate in these spiritual disciplines, I find that I have put myself in a position to hear from God.  I have tuned out all other distractions so that I can attend to Him and Him alone.  I try to clear my mind and let my thoughts come unbidden, knowing that I have not manipulated God or heard things that I want Him to tell me.

When we position ourselves to hear from God, He is faithful and will always speak.  His voice comes in a variety of forms.  It could come as we pay special attention to the beauty of creation.  It could come as we pay special attention to the things that are man made.  Paying attention always plays a big factor in hearing from God.  Once we remove all the distractions and quiet ourselves before the Lord, we  become much more aware of His presence in our lives.

Are you in a position to hear from God?  Have you put yourself in a position to have an encounter with God?   Once we have experienced this, the things on earth really do begin to grow strangely dim.