Listening to God

In Mike Yaconelli's book, Dangerous Wonder, he talks in one of the chapters about listening to God. Between the service the youth led ("Be Still...") and my papers on the Holy Spirit and Vision for ministry, I've been thinking about this a lot lately. Yaconelli quotes Sue Monk Kidd about the idea of waiting for God. She was told at one point that

When you are waiting you are not doing nothing. You're doing
something. You're allowing your soul to grow up. If you can't be
still and wait, you can't become what God created you to be.

I really like that thought, but it runs totally against the values of the world we live in. Work more. Play more. Live large! You're only as valuable to me as what you can do for me... These are the messages sent by a world where you are what you accomplish.

But the economy of Christ is so different. Jesus says, "Come follow me... Let them come... watch and pray..." In His family, it's not about what I can do for Him - it's God who is at work in me to dream and act out His ideas and hopes. And sometimes that means waiting. But waiting isn't being lazy and non-productive - it's growing up.