LISTEN

THERE ARE A LOT OF THINGS I LOVE ABOUT FLYING. One of my favorite feelings in the entire world is the gravity shift when my body is pushed back into the seat during take off. The jolt of excitement, the literal forward movement, and maybe even the change in cabin pressure give me the best feeling. It signifies new. It signifies adventure. It signifies something different than where I was.

When you’re flying you're going somewhere or you’re returning home from something—it’s always emotionally charged. 

There's also something about being above the clouds, something about looking down on something from above that makes me feel like I have a literal out-of-the-box perspective on my world. 

But on my flight home from LA this week(what is it about planes that makes me more introspective than any other place?) I realized what I love most about flying is how I’m forced to stop.

No WiFi (I know I could buy it but it never really works)
No outside world
No exercises I could be doing
No people I could be hanging out with
No room to be cleaning up
No work to do

Literally just me, my thoughts and maybe a good book or a downloaded Netflix show. 

And I realize--when I stop, when I just sit and think and listen and ask God about all the things happening in my life and what He has for me on them--how present He really is always and how often I'm not really sitting or not really listening. 

I’m constantly on the go, sprinting from work to church to hanging with friends, and often even when I do sit in my room and dedicate more time than just the work commute to God, I tend to make it more about myself and I do the talking. 

It's far too rare for me to sit and listen to what God wants to tell me. 

Don’t be so busy talking that you’re not open to listening and to hear what God has to say to you. 

He’s there. He cares. 

But he’s not going to compete with the distractions you put in your life. He will stay there and never leave, but in order to hear what He has to say you need to shut out the noise. He’s not going to yell over it. 

God wants relationship from us. He wants us to talk to him about everything and he wants us to spend time with him, just like with any of our other friends. But also like all our other relationships, we need to give Him the space to talk too. 

Take a pause.
Listen.