like a child

I love kids.

I mean, I love kids. My goal in life is to be a stay-at-home wife and mother who manages her successful online business.

If you know anything about kids, especially toddlers, you know that silence is not golden. Silence usually means that they are doing something they shouldn’t be doing. There are rare times when the silence means they have fallen asleep but it usually means they are drawing on a wall or unraveling toilet tissue.

Lately, I’ve been feeling a bit stagnant and if I listed out all the areas I feel stagnant in, it would feel like a giant pity party.

Track with me, I promise there is a connection.

It is hard to look around and see people with great success in the same areas I desire success. I want this blog, my ministry, to reach more people. I want my business to be successful. I want more like-minded friends. I want a nice and healthy relationship. I always manage to find myself on social media when this happens. This, of course, turns into me social media stalking people that I know from my past.

This makes me feel even worse! But I do it anyway. Then, as He always does, God whispers to me.

“Imani, do you trust me like you say you do?”

And I do trust God… I do.

I find myself wanting to take the wheel because I feel like I can’t hear Him. I know the teacher is quiet during the test, but it feels like some of these tests are neverending. In this specific stage of my life, God is quiet in some of the areas I desperately want to hear from Him in.

God is a ‘toddler’ in this stage of my life. When a toddler is quiet, their parent seeks them out to figure out what is going on. I believe that in this stage of my life, God’s silence in those areas is my open invitation to seek as much of Him as I possibly can. I choose to believe that seeking out God in His silence is my opportunity to tune out the over-stimulation of this life and immerse myself in the only quietness that can calm my soul.

Like a parent that doesn’t know what their child is doing until they find and observe them, I can’t hear God until I seek Him with my whole heart. Jeremiah 29:13-14a says ‘You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you,” declares the Lord.

God’s promises are always yes and amen according to 2 Corinthians 1:20. This means that His promise in Jeremiah rang as true as it did in 2 Corinthians as it rings today.

After the exodus from Egypt, the Israelites were standing at the edge of what looked like a failed promise of God. Why would God free them from slavery to bring them to the edge of what seemed to be an uncrossable sea? As they grumbled and complained against Moses, he directed them back to God. He told them in Exodus 14:13-14 “do not be afraid. Stand firm and you will see the deliverance the Lord will bring you today. The Egyptians you see today you will never see again. The Lord will fight for you; you only need to be still.”

We all know what happened soon after that.

So I’m choosing tonight, in the midst of my immense desire to rush, to wait on God. I’m choosing to force myself to sit in His silence and seek Him with my whole heart. I’m choosing to sit still in God’s promises.