Thought Train
- Hope Dobson
- Apr 27, 2020
- 3 min read
How does one sit? How does one just stay still? How can we? We have places to be and people to see. It's easier to just keep going. Your mind hops on a train barreling forward and the tracks stretch on for miles and miles. See, when you are on that train, there's no time to think about anything else. Oh, I have to do this, that, and a hundred million things before the end of the day? Oh, that's stressful. No worries, I'm currently on the thought train right now and can't be reached. Leave a message or come back tomorrow when I will have to face all of this again and will probably choose not to, again.
That's how it works, is it not? At least for me, it is. My mind has the endurance of a thousand horses and is constantly thinking. Everyone wants a little peace and quiet every once and a while but, how does one find it? That's the real question. How can you go from a turmoil of thoughts to complete silence and unfathomable peace?
It has taken me a while to find that secret place that harbors that peace and just as long to figure out how I can navigate to it in times of chaos.
Chaos: Complete disorder and confusion.
Chaos is where my train is almost always going and there never seems to be any stops along the way. Until I made one.
In times of my turmoil and chaos, I found I have a strong desire to find quiet. Recently I've been able to find that through running and blasting worship music or a podcast to drown out the noise my thoughts make. As good as its been, I wanted absolute quiet. One where I could sit in science and just listen instead of talk. That's the stop I had to build. One that allowed me to get off and just listen. How did I do that? I asked. An artist I've been listening to a lot recently said this in a podcast,
"There is power in speaking what He’s spoken. God’s word is a two-edged sword and it doesn’t return to Him void. The first edge is when He speaks it, but what makes it a second edge is when you speak it. God's word when he speaks it comes to Earth but, the way it returns is when we speak it back. That's how it doesn’t return void. Paul mentions in Hebrews 4.2, "What is the benefit of grace to those who hear it and don’t mix it with faith?" So then God’s word can go void if not mixed with faith but, if mixed with faith, if we believe and when we speak it, that's when the power is there." - John Mark Pantana
That is how I built my stop, brick by brick, spoken word by spoken word. I acknowledged my want for quiet and my thoughts to be captivated by Him. "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways and my thoughts than your thoughts." Isaiah 55. 8-9
I was able to ask and seek those places where He is louder than the noise. See, when I built that stop, I was also able to explore. I could get off and walk down different paths and just take in His beauty. We can't see the beauty when we are sitting on a train that's going a hundred miles a minute. But when we stop, get off, and just walk, or sit, or even run, we can see the flowers. We can see the greens in the trees that are strong and sturdy and the sky that can paint every color imaginable.
That's my thought train. It runs on power. Not gas power that burns and runs out inevitably. It runs on a power that when I believe it and speak it, it is present and overflowing. Do you want peace and quiet? Start building your stop. The flowers are pretty stunning when they aren't passing you by in a blur.
Love Secrets Unlocked | John Mark Pantana | Jesus, Grace, SongWriting and Worship | Episode 1
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