I looked around at all that God had blessed our family with. The overflowing garden crops, the plentiful fruit trees, the animals in abundance, the ability to provide and care for them and all that goes with the "small things" in life.
Just weeks before, I had been praying about a very possible career, that I wanted badly, that may have simple gotten us out of financial debt. However, there was history there, and it might not of. I actually had a very prosperous business right here at my home. It was increasing and I was able to help others in so many ways. On one hand, my current business had me strapped in areas that I did not care for, yet, it offered the freedoms and peace many desire. And, as I stated, it was growing. Actually, I was almost making the same amount financially, this other career offered, in less than 2 years. I had prayed about it luckily before hand and I simply asked God to provide the open doors that prospered me (in more than just financial ways) and shut the bad choices for me. So when I got the rejection letter, I looked up and thanked God for his wisdom, direction and love.
I was learning to trust Him in the still small voice.
A few short days later, every vehicle we owned, but one, had quit running. Well, I thought, it's a good thing I work from home. But it still laid heavy on my heart. A vehicle is no small purchase. For someone that is working at getting out of debt, this doesn't help. I found myself laying in bed and playing the "fear tape" in my head. You know the "fear tape". The one that tells you that life is falling apart and you are not going to make it? Well, for some reason, this time I recognized it and remembered what I did the last time. So I prayed and told God all about my frustrations (like he didn't already know) and peacefully said, "I trust you."
I'm still learning to trust Him in the still small voice.
You see, many times, we want to go to Christian Rock Concerts, or mega churches where we believe God is moving!!! I do it all the time, to feel God move. And I mean moving in ways that are sometimes like fire, earthquakes and wind. Storms that are moving all around us, it's loud and we can see and feel it and we are captured in a moment that can only happen when we are around a million other Christians with pixie dust floating in the air.... (yes, I'm trying to make a point).
Sometimes, we need to learn to get one on one with God to find that He moves mightier in our own lives during the quiet times than when it is so loud that we are distracted by the lights, the noise, the atmosphere, instead of the still small voice that He actually speaks with.
It is in those times, that we find, when the storms of life come, the storms of the wind and earthquakes and fires, as they often do, we can stand firm, knowing that we are never alone, we are not to fear and that God has it all under control, even when we are sitting in our little house over the Valley farms, secluded, with nothing but the still small voice of God.
He's there.
1 Kings 19:11-13 New King James Version (NKJV)
Then He said, “Go out, and stand on the mountain before the Lord.” And behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind tore into the mountains and broke the rocks in pieces before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire a still small voice.
So it was, when Elijah heard it, that he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood in the entrance of the cave. Suddenly a voice came to him, and said, “What are you doing here, Elijah?”