“Because talking is my specialty…” -Sarah E. Koontz

Or maybe talking isn’t your speciality…but neither is listening. I don’t just mean hearing what someone has to say, but actually listening to what they have to say. Understanding where they are coming from. Having the capability to say, “So what you are saying is…” and then sharing what you interpreted from that conversation.

I’m a talker. And as an aspiring speaker, I like getting in all the practice I can get. But, I also like to consider myself a listener. I just don’t think I do that very well sometimes. In my walk with God, I have often caught myself doing most of the talking and not much listening. I began to realize that that needed to change.

The Holy Spirit began to whisper to my heart (in those moments I was actually listening) and challenging me to just “be still and know that He is God” (Psalm 46:10). I think God can use that verse in a number of ways. For me, He spoke it in the most literal and practical way…sit down and be quiet.

A random chair I found during my morning jog at Mission Beach.

I was reading a blog by Sara E. Koontz and I love how she put it:

“I was still talking with God on a regular basis, because talking is my specialty. But, my dear sweet friend, I was not taking time to listen to Him. I was a terrible coffee date because I was dominating the conversation.”  -Blog Post: True Confessions of a Distracted Worshiper 

So because this blog post is about talking less and listening more, I am going to end with this; next time you pray, try sitting quietly and just waiting on the Holy Spirit to talk. Make sure you have nothing to distract you. Have your favorite pen and journal nearby and just sit and wait for God to speak.

You may only have to wait a minute. You may have to wait 30 mins. Then again, you might just get up and walk away feeling silly. There’s no real time frame but, the key is in not giving up. Try it. See what happens.

Another view from my jog.

Be slow to speak and slow to anger…

Are you a control freak? I am. I love knowing what’s going to happen next, or what needs to get done next. I don’t mind surprises, but I’d much rather have a 10-step plan laid out beforehand. I’m a planner…and I love planners! (Get it?!) I buy a new planner every year and do my best to fill it with all my future activities. When I was working on my undergrad (and even now as I take a couple extra classes) I would print out my syllabi (or is it syllabuses? I never quite figured that out…Googles says both are correct lol) and I would write all my assignments in my planner so I knew exactly what was due when.  That’s not even the worse part. The worse part is I’m a long-term planner. What I mean by that is that I love to plan for the next 5, 10 years and “know” where I want to end up.

Why do I say this is worse? Well, life is unpredictable. No one truly knows what’s going to happen today or tomorrow, much less 10 years down the road. Nevertheless, that is exactly what I had done the majority of my life, especially my young adult life; plan out my days, weeks, months, and years. There is just one problem with that…my perfectly planned out plans haven’t exactly been executed how I thought.

Ever since graduating from college, things haven’t exactly panned out as expected. From a broken relationship, to two lost jobs, to month upon month of unemployment…let’s just say this is definitely not what I had in mind post-college graduation.

So why the “slow to speak and slow to anger” title? Well, for those who don’t know, it comes from one of my favorite passages James 1:19b-20 “But everyone must be quick to hear, slow to speak, and slow to anger; for the anger of man does not achieve the righteousness of God.”

This summer has been a really difficult summer to go through. Why was this happening? Why weren’t things working out as I had planned and hoped? What did I do wrong?

I have been frustrated and upset. I have prayed and cried and sought God’s word. I have begged Him, pleaded with Him, questioned Him, demanded of Him…anything you can think of. Finally, I had to take a step back and search out where the root of this anger was coming from. I couldn’t keep going on this upset and I knew it was more than just not having a job. It didn’t take long for me to discover what the issue was. Control.

I was laying out my plans and praying “But your will be done God” when, in reality, I “knew” my plans were going to work out. Why wouldn’t God bless them? But that’s not how He works and coming to  that realization (again) has been a process. So, one morning, I sat in our living room with my journal and began to pray and write. Here’s pieces of what I wrote:

But my thoughts and heart have been so consumed with them (my plans & goals)…that I frustrate myself and live with a very ungrateful heart. That’s not the life I am going to live anymore…I’m surrendering control and the need to meet a specific time frame. My own time frame…

Here’s my challenge to you…stop planning! *Gasp* I know! It hurts just to type that. Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s good to have long-term goals. I think it’s good to have a plan, maybe even a backup plan (It’s actually very Biblical). But, if you’re as rigorous and controlling as I am, I’d challenge you to live the next day, or week, or even the rest of this year, with absolutely no plans. Live it in complete faith in God. See what He does. I can promise you that you’ll notice a difference…but not how you expected.

I’ll end with this, giving up our “Isaac” is never easy. For many, it’s a daily practice, a daily surrender. For me, I have had to be slow to speak what I think; slow to get angry when it comes to how I hope my life will go versus how it’s actually going. So, I just sit and listen. Waiting on God. And I wouldn’t trade it for the world.

“Comparison is the thief of happiness.” -Laura Williams

Comparison seems to be the epitome of social struggles that we as people face in the world. I am certainly not the first to say it but, what with Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, Twitter, and a myriad of other forms of social media out there, there is this constant need to paint a picture of perfection to the world. Whether it be to show our photographic skills, our unfathomable wisdom, our creative memes, or our undying love for ______(fill in the blank e.g. family, food, pets, nature etc.), there’s often this underlying competitiveness that we don’t like to admit to. So why this competition? Why this need to constantly be better than the next person? Well, I know of one person who attempted to make a comparison, was put in his place, and now, 2 thousand years later, his story is still being told.

In the last couple of chapters of each of the Gospels, Jesus is revealing Himself to His disciples after His resurrection. He shows up at various places at various occasions. But, one occasion in particular that has stood out to me the most in these last couple of months was when Jesus appears to Peter; at the very place Jesus has called him out of…fishing.

I tend to get pretty wordy so I won’t lay out the whole story. But, I would encourage you to read it (John 21 the whole chapter). Towards the end of this encounter, Jesus has asked Peter three times if he loves him [Jesus]. Three times Peter has declared that yes, he loved him. Jesus’ following statement is a pretty interesting one:

“Truly, truly, I say to you, when you were younger, you used to gird yourself and walk wherever you wished; but when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands and someone else will gird you, and bring you where you do not wish to go.” Now this He said, signifying by what kind of death he would glorify God.

Now, I don’t know about you but, if Jesus had just finished telling me that my death would be a brutal death I might re-think the whole loving Him!…well, maybe not. Hopefully not! But I probably wouldn’t be excited about it. So look what Peter does next:

“Peter, turning around, saw the disciple whom Jesus loved following them;…So Peter seeing him said to Jesus, “Lord, and what about this man?” 

Peter is looking for someone else to suffer like he is going to suffer. He’s finding someone to compare himself to in order to ease the brutality of his future death. I had never truly understood what Jesus meant by his next words. But, when the Holy Spirit revealed to me what Jesus was saying (in my own simple way of understanding) I was convicted but challenged at the same time:

Jesus said to him, “If I want him to remain until I come, what is that to you? You follow Me!”

Wow! Talk about short, sweet, and to the point! ‘What is that to you?’! Really Jesus!? You basically just told Peter ‘What do you care Peter, don’t worry about others. Worry about yourself!’. I love that the Bible has an exclamation point after that sentence. But Jesus is right.

Why should I worry about someone else? Why should I be concerned about the path they’re walking? Or how they’re living their life? Or how they’re portraying their life through social media? My concern should be to live my life according to how Jesus lived His. The more time I invest in looking at other people’s lives, the less time I invest in looking at my own life and living as Christ would have me live.

Now, don’t get me wrong. Trying to be creative on social media is not wrong. I am definitely one of those arrange-your-plates-for-a-food-shot girl. I am a huge fan of VSCO and FontCandy (even though I don’t truly claim to be a photographer or artist). In fact, right before writing this blog, I spent a good amount of time rearranging my books and Bible to get a nice shot (hehehe). I’m in Coronado on a sunny day, under a shady tree, with very green grass, jazzy guitar music playing, and my brother laying down on the grass reading for his class while I was also reading! How could I NOT take pictures of such a perfectly, beautiful day?!

But, I am the queen of comparison! And not in a good way. I tend to see how others are doing “better” in life in comparison to mine. But, if my life could be summed up with the pictures I post on Instagram, I would not be living a very full and abundant life (especially since the majority of my pictures consist of our puppy Apollo!).

Comparison is the thief of happiness. So let’s stop comparing ourselves to each other. Let’s stop growing bitter because someone else has a seemingly better life than we do. And let’s stop fueling our ego because someone else might seemingly have a worse life than we do. I would challenge you today…be content. Live a life of gratitude. Thank God for His many blessings and keep your eyes on your own path and off of others. You’d be surprised how different you might view your life.