Many times in life we wonder why things don’t break our way. It seems for every two steps forward we take we take four back. We begin to question ourselves, more importantly we begin to question God.

It is right to question ourselves. We should always be critiquing ourselves to become better. We tend to learn more thru experience than by advice. My mother used to say, “experience bought is better than experience taught…” she didn’t always mean that in the most positive light either.

We charge forward from one situation to another, from one person to another, making decision after decision. Automatically in our confidence or arrogance we believe each and every decision is the right one. When things go left in our plan we go about blaming the situation and the other persons involved in the encounter. Over time as failure after failure accumulate we lose not just confidence in ourselves. We lose confidence in others and we lose confidence in God.

A few weeks ago a person I know ran off a list of failures and desires in life that they want. I mean it was like a machine gun firing. She ended her litany with the statement, “God has to bless me with everything I want.” After picking my mouth off the floor the only thing I could think of was one of my grandmother’s sayings, “God doesn’t always give us what we want but He always gives us what we need.” Needless to say, that’s the response I gave her. She then told me that she didn’t understand that answer.

Why? That statement was self-explanatory. The reason she didn’t understand it is because she is always in motion physically and mentally. She is always racing and easily rattled. She is not the exception but she is common today.  All too common. We supersede the plan God birthed into us and form our own. We are always rushing, running, and moving most times without thought or purpose. That is why we meet degrees of failure. We need to remember that,  Life is purpose. God is purpose.

We have lost the ability to be still. To hear the message God attempts to send either directly or thru one of his children we have to learn to be still. Stillness of motion, stillness of thought, stillness of environment, stillness of speech, stillness of the soul is important. God does not always holla and He tends not to rain 3×5 index cards down on us with his messages. His messages is sent to us thru our hearts. To be still and quiet for a time allows us to hear that little whisper that we always have speaking to us, comforting us, giving us instruction and guidance. To be still allows the interference of life to clear, like the old television set with rabbit ears you turn to get a better picture. Being still allows us to clear up the picture just like moving the rabbit ears.

Being still allows us to be able to listen to the message with more intent and intensity. There is a problem we have today with people hearing and not listening. Listening is imperative. We need to be  still to receive the message and we must listen to the message we receive. Listening is an active form not a passive one. To listen to a message we must release ourselves of pretension and bias. We must be humble in the presence of the glory of God to be able to listen. In listening we must be ready for messages we may not want to receive. God’s will do not always correspond to man’s but is superior to man. His will fits into a larger purpose for us that we may not understand at the time but will be revealed to us over time.

After we are still, after we listen to the message delivered to our hearts, we must act on that message. Acting on that message whether we may understand or agree with it is our charge. Acting on God’s messages brings His blessings upon us and therefore brings our successes. We will be taking four steps forward and none back. We will have our confidence and our swagger confident in the knowledge that God is bestowing His grace upon us. All we have to do is be still, listen, and act.