I heard him speaking quietly to my heart. You know, that
still small voice that so easily gets lost among the chaos of everyday
living.
My husband had lovingly sent me out for a few hours of
processing time. Being just over 2 months postpartum from the birth of my
fourth son, I was understandably overwhelmed. But I had gotten to a point that
I couldn’t even think straight. I knew my heart had longings – longings to be
more, to be enough actually – because I so often felt like I failed. But I
wasn’t even sure what those were any more.
So I took the time, coffee, quiet, good music and my Bible.
And I sought God. I asked questions. Lots. I was silent much of the time. And
when it finally came through, His voice was crystal clear. “Be still and know,
Hannah. Be still and know that I am God.” It seemed like such a simple answer –
should be easy, right? But as a stay at home mom of four boys, I never.
Stopped. Moving! How could I ever be still?
I started seeking, analyzing, and trying to understand the
root of all the motion. The word “simplify” seemed to continue to surface
throughout my studies. But what did I really have to simplify? We had a garage
sale the year before, and I really felt like I had cleaned out well at that
point. And even though my schedule felt “busy,” at that point, my kids had not
ECA’s and other that Wednesday nights, we were home almost all the time. I
fought the idea at first. I’m not a rich person. We don’t have the biggest
house, and I sure don’t have too much stuff. But then why was I always feeling
so suffocated and unable to focus?
My husband came home from work one day with a story of a
couple who had a very nice couch they loved but had no place for in their home.
So they rented a storage unit and paid monthly to have it stored there in case
one day they may want to bring it back into their home. Years later, they went
to retrieve it – and finding it moth eaten and unusable, they grieved the loss
and realized their mistake of hanging on to something for “what if” had cost
them more in money, time, thought, and energy than it had potentially
benefited them.
God immediately began to bring to mind different items
around my home that I had stashed or stored just in case I may need it
sometime. He raised the question in my mind, “Hannah, because you are hanging
onto that dress, that bedding, those dishes, the baby gear, are you trusting in
your possessions more than you are trusting in me? Are you turning your stuff
into your ‘savior’?”
Scripture is pretty clear that we should have no other gods
(Exodus 20:3) and that we should love the Lord our God first and most (Matthew
22:37). In maintaining and finding storage for all these extras that I didn’t
know if or when I would need again, I was not only taxing my management
ability, my ability to focus, and my chaos meter, but I was also putting those
items in place of God in certain parts of my life. When I found myself saying, “I
cannot live without this.” I was saying that I was in control, and I had to
stay in control to guarantee my future. My stuff and my own control were subtly
seeping onto the throne of my heart.
As I began the slow process of weeding out these extras.
These items of idolatry in my life, I found out my heart was more deceitful
than I first thought. I uncovered areas of both pride and fear. I found myself
constantly pendulum swinging from “contentment” (not godly contentment –
prideful contentment in my possessions and how I compared to the world around
me) or consumerism (aka: fear that if I didn’t have, didn’t buy, didn’t own
certain things, I would be less than, undesirable, or not measure up in some
way to the world around me.
No one can serve both God and money (Matthew 6:24). And that
is exactly what I was doing. When I was emotional, I would shop. When I had
free time, I would shop. I didn’t think it was a bad thing because I would find
good bargains and stay within my budget, but what I had failed to see was that
my heart was devoted to my money, to my possessions, to my appearance rather
than trusting God to provide exactly what I need and direct my heart to what
was best.
I started with my clothing. I knew that if simplicity was a
change I wanted to see in my home as a whole, I had to start with myself. My
dresser was overflowing, closet stuffed, buckets in the basement. How could one
person ever use so many clothes? I was disgusted with where I had wound up.
After tackling my clothing, I went on to my books, decor, kitchen, linens and
continued to move throughout my house. I found so many things that I didn’t
even like taking up space and time to maintain that I was hanging onto just
because it had been given to us. I found myself even irritated with some of
these items. Why not just get rid of
them? They don’t serve a purpose…you don’t even like them. Yeah, but
someone had spent some money or time on them, and if I got rid of them, I was
afraid of what those people would think. And it made me feel guilty somehow.
Then God whispered to my heart. “Hannah, are you fearing man more than you are
fearing God? What if I asked you to get rid of it to make more space for me?
Would you fear me more than them?”
Challenges, growth, and freedom have all come through this process
of pursuing simplicity in order to make room to Be Still. One of the most
freeing moments so far happened one day when I sat down with my to do list,
overwhelmed at the amount of things left on it for the day. I brought it before
God. I just don’t see how I’m going to
get this all done. This is so overwhelming! “Hannah,” He quietly whispered
back. “Your expectations of yourself are higher than my expectations are of
you. Let it go.” A weight lifted as I looked back at my list and realized that
of the nine things left there, only two were necessary for that day and four I
could eliminate all together just by freeing myself of my own expectations and
choosing to live within God’s expectations for my day.
Simplicity: this journey that God has had me on for the last
twelve months has begun to free me to know who God is, to understand who I am
as a result of it, to the interrelationship of how I interact with the world
around me and the stillness or chaos of my own heart. This journey to simplify,
to still my heart and to be. To Be here. Be still. And know. That HE IS GOD!
I would love to hear how God is directing your journey or any lessons you've been learning about who God is and who you are in the midst of learning to be still...
