In the waiting



For a good portion of my life, I've been in a hurry. Hurry to get work done so I can play. Hurry to find the right person to marry to get that settled. Hurry to find success in my career. Hurry to accomplish and conquer and achieve.  This led to many, many mistakes, heartaches, and even migraines. Ugh. However, now that I've hit my 50s, I've come to recognize the immense power of slowing down, downshifting, and allowing other people to thrive and achieve. I've learned the genius of Sabbath rest, of quiet silence, and of contemplative prayer and fasting. 

In the Scriptures, many seasons of waiting, rest, and the silence of God occur. At times God is on the move and He uses humans to do great things, but more often than I realized, He uses the downtime to shape, mold and build up our faith muscles.  God might lead us into major activity or lead us beside still waters (Ps 23). Moses had years of no recorded leading or communication by God. Abraham had to navigate vague directions along with much silence from God.

Maybe, just maybe God's Holy Spirit is leading us into inaction and waiting and quiet peace? Maybe He wants to speak to us almost inaudibly like He did for Elijah in 1 Kings 19?

May I be ok with waiting in my journey of following Jesus and being led by the Holy Spirit today.

“When I cannot understand my Father’s leading,

And it seems to be but hard and cruel fate,

Still I hear that gentle whisper ever pleading,

God is working, God is faithful, ONLY WAIT.”


 Cowman, L. B. (1925). Streams in the Desert (p. 279). The Oriental Missionary Society.


Photo by Kristina Flour on Unsplash

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Going along with the crowd?

Image
Over the last several years I've found some helpful writings from the early church writings of the first few centuries of Christianity. Here is a quote I found interesting today (from www.commonprayer.net): Cyprian of Carthage, a third-century North African bishop, wrote, “The world is going mad in mutual extermination, and murder, considered as a crime when committed individually, becomes a virtue when it is committed by large numbers. It is the multiplication of the frenzy that assures impunity to the assassins.” It made me think of the old idea of peer pressure and going with the flow of culture rather than standing out and even swimming against the downstream flow of secular modernity.  Maybe Cyprian was correct in seeing how evil can become standard if enough people in a society or culture accept it? I guess it seems like the idea of strength in numbers and fitting in, etc. Jesus spoke of this danger during His ministry - specifically in the message on the mount He gave in Mat
Read more
Image
I sometimes get a bit down with my physical self. I'll complain inwardly about my poor eyesight, bad hearing, and desire to consume things that are bad for me. Hmmm. That reminds me of an old Alan Jackson song called "Everything I Love"... Anyway, I digress... We are told in Scripture that our bodies are special temples where God dwells - His presence in and through us is powerful. It's crazy to think about. Listen to the Apostle Paul's words in 2 Corinthians 4:7ff (NT Wright's New Testament for Everyone translation): But we have this treasure in earthenware pots, so that the extraordinary quality of the power may belong to God, not to us. 8 We are under all kinds of pressure, but we are not crushed completely; we are at a loss, but not at our wits’ end; 9 we are persecuted, but not abandoned; we are cast down, but not destroyed. 10 We always carry the death of Jesus about in the body, so that the life of Jesus may be revealed in our body. AND... 16 For this
Read more
Image
In honor of the upcoming St. Patrick's Day, here's a post I originally wrote back in 2006 - thought I'd share it to kick off this new blog... I’ve always wondered why some in the Christian church are so enamored with Celtic stuff. I mean, the Celtic crosses, the artwork, the old stone church buildings, the ‘mystery’, what’s this all about anyway? I then read a short little book about Celtic Christianity called Listening for the heartbeat of God – A Celtic Christianity  by J. Philip Newell and I really connected with this whole Celtic thing for the first time.  I guess what really resonates with me is this idea that God is the heart of all creation, and, since He is, when you really dig deep in every human heart, despite human sin and evil, you will ultimately find the good placed there by God. This is counter to the notion which has its roots in the early Christian church father Augustine who taught that humanity is basically evil and unable to do anything good without God.
Read more