Uproar

I do a lot of work at the local coffee house at Purdue and in the lobby of my residency hall. They're not necessarily the most quiet places, but I find my comfort, my normalcy, my mojo so to speak in this small uproar. I talked to my counselor a few days ago letting him know that I was just struggling to stay above water in my classes and he asked where I studied, I proceeded to tell him what I just told you and his response was the whole, "maybe you should consider a quieter place to study". My little heart and mind did an imaginary gasp inside of myself, a quiet place to study, NO WAY! I freaked out, and decided I was just going to nod and smile, but there was no way I was changing my habit.

Now that I'm sitting in my coffee house comfort zone in the midst of the dull uproar of conversations about everything, people wasting time, people being WAY productive, and everyone drinking coffee and just being, I'm wondering why I was so opposed to a quiet place. What's in the quiet that I find disturbing, that I find upsetting and worth gasping about? Maybe the answer is in the question. What? The quiet is a mystery (or at least for me it is), it's a place where all of a sudden we are who we are and we are slapped with a rude awakening of reality, no more lies, no more distractions. A dull uproar, that pretty much characterizes my whole life. Running from place to place, something planned every day, studying out the wazoo, and work to pay for my expensive coffee house habits. Quiet isn't exactly something that I come across every day and when I do my brain doesn't just stop, it keeps going, desperately trying to escape from this situation of rest. It takes a while just for me to stop thinking to go to sleep!

Yet, God desires us to be in rest with Him, to sit with Him in Silence and listen to His Voice whispering in the wind. God desires us to rest from our daily lives so that our souls may find peace and renewal and may be poured into by His amazing fountain of Life; but it takes seeking out. We have to actually seek out the quiet in our culture; we must search for a place that is our own and be able to sit with the Lord. "... the crowds of people came to hear him and to be healed of their sicknesses. But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed." - Luke 5:15-16. Christ did it in the peak of His ministry, so why should we not withdraw from our daily lives and be in touch with the Creator of the Universe and every cell? Take some time this day and sit with the Lord. Be it through journaling, sitting in some nature, listening to worship music, going for a walk, reading your Bible, or praying. See what happens when we lose the uproar.