I am continually amazed at my own propensity to fill up my life with all sorts of distractions and yet complain that I cannot hear God's voice and receive His direction. This became especially clear to me as I began to read Walking With God by John Eldredge. He related a story early on about how he had gone up to a cabin on a vacation, with many big plans on what to do, only to be stopped by a rainstorm that kept him on the porch. As he fumed about it, he came to the realization that the rain was the only thing that God could use to stop him in his tracks such that he would take time to listen to God and actually rest. His proclivities are like mine - the instant that "free time" presents itself, we think of how best to "maximize the value density" (to borrow a corporate term) of that time so that we get the most done in the most efficient manner.
But when that happens, there is no rest. When I was working, I used to live for the weekends because I wouldn't have a schedule and could do whatever I wanted...but oftentimes I would fill it up with so much stuff that by 8pm on Sunday night, I wasn't rested and was facing another week of work and no rest. I'm noticing that now that I'm not working, I'm still filling up my time with stuff (even inane stuff like television) and am not listening to God or, alternatively, I'm not doing anything at all and feeling like I've wasted the time. I may be physically rested, but my spirit is still restless and weary.
Learning to hear God's voice takes time and practice. In this instant-gratification society, a lot of times I get jazzed by some new method that I've read about in a book (that worked for somebody else) and when it doesn't immediately work for me, I discard it. When I don't hear God's voice, I start to panic and take matters into my own hands - in this case evidenced by the freakout I mentioned in a previous post in regards to my "running out of money" (which I'm not). I just realized that in this time of rest, this time of rejuvenation, I constantly have to hold back the beast of distraction and worry that would destroy that rest and relaxation. I can think of nothing worse than to get to the end of this time of rest and still be unable to hear God's voice and realize that I ended this season prematurely due to my own inability to sit still and be quiet.
So that's my challenge in the days ahead - to engage in this process of learning to hear God's voice and training myself to follow him rather than going off on blazing my own trail and then asking him to follow me and clean up my mess. Above all, I need to learn how to give more control to him and have a more conversational relationship with him such that I can see where he's leading me rather than just taking a blind guess and hoping that I'm going the right way. Quite the challenge, but one I'm very interested to undertake starting today.
I tend to think that "the old days" before all of our modern distractions must have been grand...but probably weren't. Maybe that's why Jesus went into the wilderness...maybe busy-ness isn't a product of modern times, but a product of our humanity...running to do things because we have finite time.
I think you're right. Just because they didn't have video games or television or what we would consider "modern distractions" doesn't mean that they didn't have anything to distract them. Times were perhaps simpler then, but there was and always will be plenty of stuff to do that keeps us from being quiet and still before God. I think Eldredge's example was a good one - the things he was planning to do on his vacation were all leisure activities (teaching his son to fish, getting out on his boat, hiking around the lake, doing some odds and ends on the cabin, etc.) but they had filled up his schedule so much that he was always doing something.
The interesting part to me is his exploration as to why he was angry that he wouldn't be able to do those things before he realized what God was trying to do. I think it would be really cool to be able to see the alternate path on how he would have felt and what he would have thought had God allowed him to do all the stuff that he was planning to do - would he have felt rested, relaxed, and fulfilled? I'd say probably not. He'd probably be sitting there saying what so many of us say upon coming back from time off - "I need a vacation from my vacation!"
I think that busy-ness is perhaps exacerbated more these days than in the past due to the current "go-go-go, always on" work ethic that seems so prevalent (at least here in the US) which makes us think that if we didn't get 1,000 things done on a given day that it was unproductive and wasted. I think that we've lost the idea that sitting on the porch, sipping lemonade, and building relationships with our family and neighbors is a valuable way to spend some time and is just as productive as closing a big business deal when it comes to the kingdom that really matters.