/THE MELODY AND THE NOISE/

I got up early this morning. Early for a Saturday anyway...

Had to do an appearance as the Mic-Man for Walk MS of Athens. It was raining and walks don't tend to do too well in the rain, but people showed, and people walked, and we appeared so all is right and well in the world.

The coolest thing about this morning, though, was not the Walk or the rain or the waking up early. The coolest thing about this morning is that God is somehow in the Shuffle feature of my iPod. I didn't know this. I've believed it at times, but He confirmed it this morning and showed up right there in the Shuffle button. Crazy...

Towards the start of my drive one of Rob Bell's podcasts came on called, "Praying with an Ache". The man is truly a talented teacher and speaker, and I can never seem to get enough of what he shares. This morning his message spoke volumes in my life.

In Psalm 77 Asaph cries out to God from the depths of his soul for understanding and knowledge. At times we, with our polite prayer tendencies and unemotional prayers, would probably think lightning should have come down at any minute and killed Asaph for the way he challenges God, yet God withholds. And the question arises that maybe, if God withheld wrath on Asaph for his emotional cries for understanding, just maybe, God isn't so much longing for our politeness to Him but instead our true hearts' cry. Maybe He wants the depths of our souls, and we continually withhold because church or life or manners or whatever have taught us to have tact even in the most private of our conversations with God. A God that created the universe probably isn't buying our polite conversation. I doubt that we're fooling Him into thinking that everything is fine when it isn't, and I doubt He created those things that well up within us dying to be released simply for us to stifle them.

But then there's me, and I get in the way of myself a lot.

I'm a strong advocate of tact and manners especially in everyday life. I think that there's been a complete decline in the values and manners that people seemed to innately born with in the past. I'm 23. I'm not about to go on a rant about how great things use to be. I don't know how they use to be. I've heard how they use to be, and I like the sound of it, but I've also heard of the Crusades and World Wars, and that doesn't sound too appealing so maybe people have sugar-coated it all just for my benefit. But I grew up in a small town, and I put stock in manners, and Rob Bell telling me that God really doesn't want my manners in my prayer, what He really wants are those other things that we've all been taught to keep on the inside, may be a little too much for me right now.

But then I'm still driving in the rain, and I'm listening. I get on the Loop around Athens. (Like 285 only way smaller.) And I drive some more. And I listen some more. And there's this constant noise of driving in the rain...

Pitter patter on my windshield, tires on the road, windshield wipers back and forth, and Rob Bell speaking... And then Verse 9...

I drive under an overpass. The rain stops and all the noises stop and Rob Bell talks about the sacred pause in Psalms called Selah...

And I get it.

This was one of those moments when all the noises of the world disappears, and you're begging for this moment of silence to last longer than it should because this isn't just a moment of silence. This is a Selah, a sacred pause to your life, and you want to live in it. It brings something different and new in your life. Change. And you truly wish you could live in it and embrace it forever. But it's fleeting. Lasting only moments.

And you can't live in this Selah. And you can't live under the overpass.

People that live under overpasses disconnect from the world. You've been called to live in the world.

And a sacred pause is just that. A pause.

So you take with you this moment of silence and pause and reflection, and you take it out from under the overpass, back out into the pitter patter on the windshield, and the tires on the road, and windshield wipers moving back and forth, and Rob Bell speaking...

Yet you are different already.

And now, maybe you, maybe I, maybe we...

Pray with an ache and drive through the rain.