Tonight I went for a long walk. I thought about Don's struggle at the end of Chapter 9, Amy's disillusionment with Christianity when she was a teenager, and the passage from Kings. I thought about the spiritual irritation I feel so much of the time. I realized then that I was only thinking about my irritation. I did not feel any irritation as I walked the quiet, dark streets in my neighborhood. In fact, I was at peace.
In an earlier chapter, Don talked about the times when his faith came easily. At one point, he was reading his Bible regularly and even marveled during one reading session about how easily God had come to him and how good he was feeling. He wondered why it couldn't always be that way - why those good times with God and his faith so often slipped away. Sure enough, a few months later Don was back in a funk and doing things he wasn't particularly proud of and felt bad about.
I contemplated this same thing tonight. Why on some (rare) occasions my spirit just soars, or I at least feel contentment. The times when I don't have to hunt, dig, or beg for it to come.
Life is a funny thing. Sometimes we just have to let our hair down and let all of those bad things loose. Those "bad" things may even be quite fun. It is how I think about that passage from Kings. If all was still all the time, maybe we couldn't hear that quiet voice. Maybe the ruckus helps us to find the light.
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I think there is an ebb and flow to faith. Which can be really hard. And sometimes it is especially hard to hear that "still small voice" with all the chaos of our daily lives making all that noise. That is why I think it's good to take a moment out of each day to take a walk like you did or just be quiet and be still. I think that's really hard for some of us to do. Myself especially!
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