And a Recent Song . . .

Several posts ago, I mentioned I had written a song. Then at the request of couple of folks I posted the words to that song. I wrote another recently that I hope to use in church sometime. I think it would work well with a congregation. Let me know what you think if you get the chance. Here it is:

The Great Physician

We come as the broken
We come as the sick
We come as the needy
To You to be fixed

We come with our heartaches
We limp with our pain
And we come here together
Knowing You heal the lame

Chorus:
Because You, Jesus
Are the Great Physician
You rescue us
From our desperate condition

You show us Your mercy
As you wipe away our tears
And You take away the guilt
We’ve amassed through the years

You bind up the wounds
You restore our souls
You remove all our sin
Only You can make us whole

Chorus:
Because You, Jesus
Are the Great Physician
You rescue us
From our desperate condition

Bridge:
The deaf will hear
The blind will see
The lame will walk
How can this be?

Chorus:
Because You, Jesus
Are the Great Physician
You rescue us
From our desperate condition

A Recent Sermon

This is not just a recent sermon but the last one I preached before getting the flu. It began, strangely, as a sermon about giving. I was going to look at 2 Corinthians 8, 9 where Paul is encouraging the church to make good on their promise to help the Christians in Jerusalem. But as I was working on it, I realized that it was important to provide some foundation for our giving; namely, I realized that we had to look at what it means to call God a giver first. Admittedly, I was also inspired by a book I've been reading by Miroslav Volf called Free of Charge: Giving and Forgiving in a Culture Stripped of Grace.

The follow-up sermon I will hopefully finish for next Sunday is called "Being Gifts." And though it looks at how we give, it is not at all about financial giving. It's going to look at spiritual gifts and the importance of these gifts for the life of a church community and how using our gifts, whatever they may be, are the most important way we can give ourselves to Christ and his people.

Anyway, below is the sermon on God as giver. I hope it gives both your heart and mind some food for thought.

“God the Giver”
Matthew 6:25 – 34; James 1:17, 18

Introduction—it is blessed to receive!

On the first Christmas my wife and I were together we were just recently engaged, and I spent a lot of time over the holidays with her family. It was also the first Christmas in a long time that I almost felt like a kid again. You see, she must have told her parents all about my interests and likes because many of the gifts they got me were things I actually asked for and those that weren’t were still very thoughtful and personal. I still use those homemade pillow cases! I was truly astonished and overwhelmed by their generosity.

We’re told by Jesus that it is more “blessed to give than to receive,” and I think this is true; but, I tell you, that Christmas I felt pretty blessed by what I received! And I know, we’re taught to think that as Christians we should enjoy giving more than receiving, but am I the only one here who feels blessed to receive gifts? How many people here love to get gifts? You can be honest, because your pastor is putting his hand up too!

And no matter how generous anyone else is to us—family or friends—no one is as generous to us as God is. So this morning we’re going to look at what it means to call God a giver; and not only a giver but the giver. That God is the ultimate giver means the first thing we need to be are good receivers. Today we’re going to ask what God gives, how God gives, and why God gives. And hopefully as we do so we will be even more surprised by God’s generosity, experience even more humility and gratitude in the face of it, and be moved to become even better receivers as a result of it.

What God Gives—Surprised by Generosity

Now I can think of at least a few occasions when not only has our daughter referred to something as “mine” but when she did so because another child wanted to play with that particular toy. Lots of kids do this. Another child visits, goes to play with a toy that belongs to the child they’re visiting, and that child snatches the toy back and says, with some indignation, “Mine!”

And it’s not only children that are possessive about their belongings. We adults can be that way too. We might not snatch back our “toy” but we might find ourselves wanting to do so. At the very least we do divide things between “mine” and “not mine.” Conflict can even arise when there is a dispute over what’s “yours” and what’s “mine.”

I had two uncles who ended up having a huge conflict over a piece of land left to them by my grandfather when he died. It was so bad that they didn’t speak for years. Thankfully they eventually reconciled but it’s still a shame that so much time was wasted by a fight over a piece of property. Especially since that land didn’t really belong, strictly speaking, to either of them. It was given to them by my grandfather. As such, it was a gift. And the fight that resulted missed this point and thereby dishonoured the giver.

Nothing we own or have is ours. We possess nothing, properly speaking. All that we have and experience as blessing—homes, cars, food, jobs, family, friends, and career opportunities—are gifts given to us by God. Our passage from James tells us that “every generous act of giving, with every perfect gift, is from above, coming down from the Father of lights.” All the good in our lives that we know comes from God. God gives us everything.

Recognizing this is a simple extension of acknowledging that God is our creator. Not only does all we have come from him, we come from him. We owe God our very life. He’s the one who breathes life into us. Psalm 104:30 says this of God’s activity as creator: “When you send forth your spirit, they are created.” Apart from God, we would not be. And so, likewise, apart from God, we would have nothing. So everything we have is gift.

No matter who our employer is or how we provide for our living that ultimately we rely on God. To use an imperfect analogy, whoever signs your pay-check, the funds come from God’s bank account.

This is a call to trust in him as giver—as our heavenly Father who gives us every good and perfect gift. We see this, too, in Jesus’ words from the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew that we heard earlier. Here Jesus points to birds of the air and says to his followers, “They neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?”

Jesus wants his disciples not to worry about food and clothes like other people do: “So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” So, Jesus says, if God takes care of even the birds of the air, will he not also take care of you? Is he not worthy, therefore, of your trust?

But trusting God as the ultimate giver, the one who ultimately provides us with all we need, is not always easy. This is where prayer comes in. Trust in God is most fully embodied in prayer. This is why in the Lord’s Prayer Jesus teaches us to pray “give us each day our daily bread.” Jesus is teaching us to rely on the Father of lights, on God’s ongoing providential care. By praying these words we gradually learn to move from worry to trust, from anxiety to faith.

In his letter to the Philippians, Paul encourages prayer for very similar reasons. “Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.” In other words, turn your cares into prayers! Trust God, because God is the one who gives us everything we need. To experience and know God as the ultimate giver means, or at least it should mean, being surprised by his generosity and approaching him in faith.

How God Gives—Experiencing Humility and Gratitude

That God gives us everything we need, that he is the source of our life and all of our blessings, leads us to ask: How is it that God is such a giver? What reason could God have for being so utterly, completely generous?

As a father, I want the absolute best for my child, for my daughter. I want her to be healthy, happy, and to have the best education we can provide, the best opportunities, and, most of all, I want her to know, love, and serve God. Why do I want this? Is it because she always demonstrates that she deserves such things? Is it because she’s entitled to have the best this world has to offer? Or is it simply because I am her father and all fathers want the best for their kids? This is what it means to be a father, at least ideally.

God’s reason for being infinitely generous and giving to us is that he is Father. Being the ultimate giver is the essence of who he is. Like James tells us, “Every good and perfect gift” comes from God. And this is so because God himself is goodness. He gives because of who he is; giving is what a good God does.

We probably all have the feeling sometimes that we are owed something—maybe even owed a good life or perhaps a better life. Maybe it’s a fleeting feeling. But there are people who develop a sense of entitlement, that they deserve better than what they have.

Here’s an example:

If I happen to come into some extra money or have fewer expenses in a given month, I might be easily tempted to use that extra money to get myself a treat, something I couldn’t normally afford. So because I work hard to provide for my family, do my best to be a good person, father, husband, pastor, Christian, and citizen, I find myself saying, “Go ahead, treat yourself. You deserve this.” And I might indulge that impulse even though that extra money could be used more wisely or thoughtfully: put a little more on an outstanding bill, give a little more to the church or another good cause, or lend the money to someone I know is in need. But that little voice persists: “You deserve this.”

But when it comes to what God gives, we deserve none of it. He doesn’t give us anything we have based on our merit. We haven’t earned God’s gifts, be it our job, our material possessions, our family or even our very breath. God gives because of who God is: a heavenly Father who loves his children.

This should be a humbling thought. We have what we were not owed, have gained what we have not earned, and have been given what we have not deserved. Knowing God is the ultimate giver, the one who gives us everything, leads us to trust him—leads us to open our hearts to him in prayer, to leave our worries at his feet, and surrender our cares to him. Knowing that all he gives he gives out of his sheer goodness and not because of anything we have done should lead us to a posture of humility.

Humility and thankfulness. I began today’s message by telling you about my first Christmas with my wife's family. At the time I felt overwhelmed, humbled, by their generosity. I’m sure some of you have had occasion to feel that same sense of humility when you’ve received a gift. And usually our first response is to thank the giver.

The same is true of the gifts we receive from God—not only should his generosity lead to our humility, but also our gratitude. We give thanks to God, we express our thanks for all that God has given to us. This, too, we do in our prayers, just as in our prayers we turn to God to meet our needs.

One of the things we always—or almost always—do in our home at mealtimes is give thanks or say grace. It can sometimes seem rote, but it makes us stop even if for a moment to remember that what we have comes from God. Even our little girl will say grace, sometimes without prompting!

As Paul says in 2 Corinthians 9:15, “Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift.” Just as knowing God gives us everything leads us to turn our cares into prayers, when we experience God’s goodness through his gifts, we need to have an attitude of gratitude. Or as someone else has said, “Faith receives God’s gifts as gifts; gratitude receives them well.”

Why God Gives—Becoming Good Receivers

God gives us everything, and he does so because of his goodness, his sheer willingness to give even though we deserve none of his gifts. But if we don’t get these gifts because we deserve them, what purpose does God have in giving as he does? Is God interested in doing more than simply blessing us with all that we have? Are we to sit back and just enjoy what he gives?

In our culture, we have something called ‘returning the favour.’ Someone does something for us, we feel obligated to do something for them in return. Someone gives us a gift, shows us generosity, we feel obligated to give them a ‘return gift.’ But when we talk about God being the giver, what can we possibly give to him in return? Though we owe him everything, we can offer him nothing. Since we have received everything from God than what can we possibly give to God?

Theologian Miroslav Volf has written a profound and wonderful book called Free of Charge: Giving and Forgiving in a Culture Stripped of Grace. Speaking about what we do in response to God’s giving, he says this: “God gives so that we can exist and flourish, but not only for that. God gives so that we can help others exist and flourish as well. God’s gifts aim at making us into generous givers, not just fortunate receivers. God gives so that we, in human measure, can be givers too.”

As God’s people, we are called to imitate God, to be godly. While we can only ever do this in an imperfect manner, this means practicing generosity ourselves. God’s word to us is one of unfathomable kindness—an extraordinary degree of giving of which our lives can only ever be a faint echo. But imitate God’s giving we must. Otherwise we dishonour both the Giver and the gift.

Conclusion—“It is more blessed to give . . .”

In his novel The Brothers Karamazov, Fyodor Dostoyevsky tells the story of an old peasant woman who was quite wicked and who died without leaving a single good deed behind. She lived for herself, taking whatever she could by whatever means. And over the course of her life, she showed no interest in being kind or generous to anyone. After she died, the devil seized her and threw her into the lake of fire. Dostoyevsky continues the story this way:

“So her guardian angel stood and wondered what good deed of hers he could remember to tell to God; ‘She once pulled up an onion in her garden,’ said he, ‘and gave it to a beggar woman.’ And God answered: ‘You take that onion then, hold it out to her in the lake, and let her take hold and be pulled out. And if you can pull her out of the lake, let her come to Paradise, but if the onion breaks, then the woman must stay where she is.’ The angel ran to the woman and held out the onion to her. ‘Come,’ said he, ‘catch hold and I’ll pull you out.’ He began cautiously pulling her out. He had just pulled her right out, when the other sinners in the lake, seeing how she was being drawn out, began catching hold of her so as to be pulled out with her. But she was a very wicked woman and she began kicking them. ‘I’m to be pulled out, not you. It’s my onion, not yours.’ As soon as she said that, the onion broke. And the woman fell into the lake and she is burning there to this day. So the angel wept and went away.”

If this were a true story about how to get into heaven, it would be a bad one. Even the most profound act of human generosity doesn’t warrant God’s favour. If there is anything true in this story, it is the picture of a God whose generosity extends to even the very wicked.

But perhaps it’s true in another way also. If only this woman had shared her onion with those who were grasping at her heels, she could have escaped the fires of selfishness and greed that ended up consuming her. Instead, by holding onto the onion as tightly as she did, she lost both it and herself.

I said at the beginning that while Jesus tells us “it is more blessed to give than to receive,” that we can still feel blessed by also being receivers, by gratefully and humbly receiving the gifts we are given by God. Yet while this is true, we can never truly be good receivers until we also learn to give. Otherwise we run the risk of losing what we’ve been given and ourselves just like this woman in Dostoyevsky’s novel. And it is only when we learn to give away the gifts that we can truly say that we know the Giver.

To Preach Or Not To Preach . . .

So I'm over the flu but today I feel like I could nap and sleep most, if not all, of the day away. But I can't do that. You see, today is Saturday. With tomorrow being Sunday, today I have to ready myself to preach tomorrow. I've got a sermon to finish. I must confess, however, getting back into the groove isn't proving to be easy. I suppose it's the combination of feeling tired today and of having been essentially off work for the better part of two weeks that is making getting to work today more difficult. True, I did spend some time last week working on a sermon that I never finished. So it's really been about a week or so since I've worked. Yet having had no regular work routine for so long makes it feel like it's been more than that.

I also have to decide whether I'm going to finish the sermon I planned on preaching last week when I was sick or am I going to do something else. You would think finishing a sermon already begun would be easier than that something else. But the thought has occurred to me of using an old sermon tomorrow and giving myself more time to work on that almost-done message. I have two reasons for considering this. First, I don't know if I have the energy to work through the sermon I have already started. Like I said, while I'm over the flu, I am tired today. I don't want to produce a half-hearted effort that will disappoint and fall flat.

That leads to my second reason. The sermon that I was working on is a follow-up sermon from the last one. And so I want it to be able to carry the weight it needs to have. I don't want to just say that it needs to be good--but it does, in a way. It also might be the beginning of a new series. I don't want to slough it off. I want to be able to think about it, reflect on it, pray about, etc. Even as I write this, I'm convincing myself that it needs more attention than I can give it today. Those of you out there who are preachers or who have preached know exactly what I mean.

But to take more time to prepare that sermon means preparing a different sermon for tomorrow, and as much as I love bringing something fresh to my congregation I don't know that I want to give them a "Saturday-special," a message that was entirely conceived the day before it was preached. So . . . that means what I guess you can call a recycled sermon. This is the advantage of having sermons on file my present congregation has never heard! It's not my favourite option but it works on a few levels.

Are there pastors out there who have done this? I'd love to know. Have you ever preached an old sermon to a new congregation for a similar reason or for a completely different reason? What do you think of the notion? Do you think God can take an old message and use it again? Not to compare our sermons with Scripture, but certainly that's what happens there. Paul wasn't writing to us. But what he wrote under the inspiration of the Spirit certainly speaks to us. Knowing that this is true gives me some measure of confidence that my congregation can still be blessed by my message, even if they're not the first ones who've heard it!

Lessons from the Flu

And so it seems the flu has finally left me. Since Sunday is only two days away, this is a good thing. Of course, it would be a good thing even if Sunday were a week away. But I just didn't want to miss another week of church. One was enough. That was odd enough.

All this time spent resting and trying to get better and not being able to do much else has had a way of reminding me of a couple of things. First, I'm not the center of the universe. Things continue to happen even if I'm sick in bed with a temperature. This is a good, if sobering, piece of information. Thinking about this in relation to church life reminds me of a book by Eugene Peterson and Marva Dawn called The Unnecessary Pastor. Looking out the window, I can see that the church building is still standing, even though I haven't been in my office. And as I learned last Sunday, even the occasional church service can go on without me. I am not completely necessary.

That said, there is a second thing. That is, we are all necessary. I was reminded of what doesn't happen when I don't do it. A new sermon doesn't get finished or preached. Certain things get put off until I'm well again. Less gets done. But here's the thing: even so, it's not that big a deal. A week later here, two weeks later there. It doesn't make much difference, at least not in the grand scheme of things. It's almost as though each of us is useful but not altogether necessary. Does that make any sense? Maybe the cold and flu medication has just gone to my head.

Anyway, I am grateful to feeling so much better. And I am expecially grateful that now I can finally begin to enjoy some of this wonderful spring weather. It also means I can finally get out there and clean my car, which, after a winter of mostly no-cleaning, it most desperately needs.

Sick Day(s)

Right now, it's nearly 1pm on a Sunday afternoon and I've been home all day so far. In fact, I didn't even go to church. Not exactly an earth-shattering confession for most people, but seeing as how I'm a pastor my absence tends to require a little more explanation.

And the explanation: I've got the flu. And I've had it for about a week. For about half the week it's kept me lying in bed resting and sleeping; and for the other half fooling me that perhaps I'm getting better. I thought this yesterday until after supper when such lovely symptoms like a sinus headache, chills, and aches over most of my body returned after more than a day's absence. My wife promptly called one of our deacons to let him know. These symptoms were still there when I woke up this morning and, so, my wife promptly called that same deacon to confirm the fact that I would not be in church this morning. This lucky deacon was then e-mailed a sermon I preached in our previous church so he could read it dutifully to the congregation.

One of the stranger aspects of this is that we live across the street from the church. This means I could peer out the window and see cars filling the parking lot. Could. I didn't. Though I did sneak a peek as people were leaving after the service, wondering to myself how things went and wishing I could have been a fly on the wall.

As a pastor, unless your weekly schedule is brimming over with appointments and meetings (mine is not!), the only day when people will notice you taking a sick day is Sunday. Some of the more cynical and ignorant might well think incredulously, "The only day of the week he works, and he's sick?" Thankfully, I don't believe anyone in our church is that cynical or ignorant.

It was also extra-odd because by mid-morning (say 10am) I began to feel a little better and by 11am, which is when our service begins, I felt noticeably better. Like any reasonable person, I began to feel like I could have made it to the service. Nevermind that since I was sick most of the week, including Saturday night, that I had not been able to complete my planned sermon. But as my wife reminded me, I had taken some medication, which would relieve the symptoms, and I still had a mild fever, and I shouldn't take the chance and pass on the flu to someone else.

I should say that it is not only a sick day for me. Our little girl is still fighting a cold, one she's had for three weeks. Like me, her symptoms have come and gone and come again. If she had been feeling this morning as good as she did a couple of days ago, she and my wife likely would have gone to church. As it is, my wife didn't want to leave home with a sick little girl with a runny nose and persistent cough and who also was truly fed up with being sick. At one point, she opined, "I hate my nose!"

Anyway, this flu is one reason I haven't been back here posting in awhile. I'm beginning to feel better at the moment, but I've learned already not to take that feeling at face value. So while I'd like to say I'll be posting more soon, that depends on how many sick days are actually left!

Thinking About Prayer: Part 3

I think God expects us to worry. Or at least he's not surprised when we do. Certainly, there are always plenty of worries in life that can give rise to anxiety. It's amazing we don't spend more time wracked with anxiety than we do! Of course, for some worry and anxiety is incapacitating. And while, again, this doesn't surprise God, this is also not his will for our lives.

I've used Paul's words on prayer in Philippians 4:6 probably more times than I can count: "Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God." I have used these words frequently in my own prayers simply because I can struggle with anxiety, that awful in-the-pit-of-your-stomach feeling that serves to distract and disturb. I begin with the thought that God knows I worry. If people weren't prone to worry, why provide such admonition? Only the presence of anxiety in people's actual experience provides ample reason for Scripture to counsel us in such a way.

Because God is our heavenly Father, he can be trusted. This is what we believe. Or at least this is what we say we believe; what we live sometimes contradicts our verbal confessions. But each of us is a bundle of sinful contradictions anyhow. "I believe; help my unbelief" are words we can all relate to at one time or another. Praying these words gets us on the road to trusting God. This is what Paul is advising.

The Message translates Paul's words here as follows: "Don't fret or worry. Instead of worrying, pray. Let petitions and praises shape your worries into prayers, letting God know your concerns." Having worries is one thing; letting them dominate you is quite another. Prayer is an act of trust that what worries us needn't rule us, that even if God doesn't solve all of our problems in an instant, he can give us peace in the midst of them and help us through them. But for this to be true, we have to pray. We have to ask. To experience "the peace of God" we have to know him as our Father, one who will provide for our needs and grant us our daily bread.

Yet, it's still not always easy. I don't find it so. Some worries and cares are so immediate that the promise of peace from God through prayer seems an abstract and distant hope at best. We desire the peace offered, but find it impossible to believe. We do and we don't. "I believe; help my unbelief!" Sometimes it simply takes us longer to let go and give things into God's hands. And when we finally do it's begrudgingly so; and we offer no guaratee that we won't try to snatch our cares back.

But we also shouldn't berate ourselves in the midst of all this for our lack of faith. Sure, Jesus points out the disciples' lack of faith several times in the gospels; but I don't think we should follow suit here. Instead, I think we should approach God with whatever scraps of faith we have and ask him for more. Too many people get down on themselves when anxiety besets them. "If only I had more faith, I would not be so worried!" I should say that I am preaching to myself to some extent here!

Everything we think and feel is material for prayer. God already knows every thought and emotion we experience. So nothing we go through is a secret we can keep or a surprise we can suddenly reveal. If we lack faith, ask for faith. If we lack faith that God can help us with our worries, then ask for faith that God can help us with our worries. "Help" is the most honest prayer of all. More than anything, God wants us to trust him with our lives. Much in life teaches us to do precisely the opposite. Our world is not conducive to faith. We are surrounded by enemies that drain the energy we need to bring to our prayers. But even a whimpered prayer is better than resigned silence.

All this to say that if you ever struggle with prayer and with worries, you're not alone. And God understands even before you try to explain yourself. The best thing to do is be yourself, to be open and honest with him, "and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."

Shhh . . . Again!

Today, sometime around mid-morning, the power went out in our neighbourhood. It doesn't happen very often and as usual it didn't last terribly long. But when it did go out, that meant the TV was off, we couldn't listen to the radio, there was no phone ringing, and even a couple of our appliances which were in mid-cycle stopped. We couldn't go online either. So for a short time we had to endure an imposed silence of sorts.

I didn't mind.

Lately, I've been feeling more stressed than usual. The pressures of ministry, home, and finances sometimes have a cumulative effect that ends up being more than the sum of their parts, and that's been true the last little while. And for me, if I'm already on edge or feeling irritable or stressed, noise can easily exacerbate my attitude. And by noise I mean any media. Sometimes my daughter, whom I love dearly, can make unwanted noise too. But, blessedly, during this brief respite from noise, she was with my wife reading stories. It allowed me to sit back and quietly read my Bible. There wasn't much else to do or much else I could do! It almost felt like God was telling me to sit down and shut up. And to sit down and shut up is not far from a description of what Sabbath ought partly to be about.

But quiet has to be self-imposed too. The power usually is there to make the appliances whir, the TV to distract, the laptop to hum, and the phone to ring. So effort is needed to find room for quiet in a world that far too often tempts us to fill every waking moment with noise. Even lately I've noticed a desire in me for more quiet, for more evenings of simply sitting with my Bible, a good book, or even a good magazine. My recent experiences of the sound of silence, however short-lived, have thoroughly reminded me of this. But the challenge I face is whether I will willingly allow silence to penetrate my otherwise noisy life.

All I know is that perhaps having quiet around me is related to having quiet inside of me, that allowing myself the experience of silence will hopefully promote a stillness of spirit, a space into which God can speak and be heard. And this is really the trickier part: stilling the noise on the inside of the heart and mind. Even if there is quiet all around, I can be all noise and distraction underneath. That's one of the reasons I suspect we surround ourselves with noise of whatever kind: to keep the restless sounds of our hearts from being heard. And I suspect that there are times when this may be more or less unconscious. We aren't always aware of our attempts at self-distraction; they become effortless and habitual. It doesn't take a whole lot of motivation to turn the TV on or surf the internet; deliberately placing ourselves in a position to listen to the stillness of God's voice requires discipline. That, unfortunately, is something many of us, pastors included, desperately lack. We fear what we may hear, perhaps?

But God desires to speak to us. Indeed, he has spoken to us ultimately in his Son, the Word. And he speaks to us in the words of Scripture, which tell of the Word. He is present when we pray. In fact, he is present even when we don't pray. He is always present to us; but we are not always present to him. And being present to God is all the more difficult when we allow the inferior "words" of everything else around us drown out the possibility of hearing his voice. Maybe what we need are more power outages!

Shhh . . .

Shhh . . . It's quiet. I just noticed. And truthfully this day has been a quieter day. Though it doesn't always happen this way, this Monday, today, has truly been a day off. I've gone for a walk, had a nap, and now am having a relatively quiet evening. This is quite uncharacteristic of our evenings, but our daughter, who currently is sick with a nasty cold, has been in bed for an hour or more already. That, while not good, does have a definite effect on the degree of quiet in our home! And so in spite of our daughter's being sick, the quiet is most welcome.

And it has been welcome, and needed, because life normally isn't quiet. Sound pervades most waking moments of our lives. It could be the TV, radio, computer, conversation, street noise, children running amok from room to room, or even music from a stereo. Some of the sound is wanted, and some of it is unwanted; some of it we invite, and some of it enters like an unwelcome intruder.

I realized today, too, that sometimes we don't always know the benefit of quiet until we actually experience it. And it's funny because sometimes I deliberately fill my time with noise, of whatever sort, to prevent quiet, to escape it. I suppose sometimes we don't want to know what we might hear in the quiet, when nothing else is drowning out the sound of the stillness.

Isaiah 30:15 says: "This is what the Sovereign LORD, the Holy One of Israel, says: 'In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength, but you would have none of it.'" And though this is taking the verse somewhat out of context, it's true that we "would have none of it" at times. We'd rather crowd out God's voice, his offer of salvation, with noise. Perhaps that's because salvation proceeds from repentance. And so often we try to manage life with our own strength.

In quietness and trust is your strength.

But rather than manage our struggles and our problems, things that stress us out, on our own, we are invited to trust that God can lead us through threatening waters. Exodus 14:13, 14 says: "Moses answered the people, '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 need only to be still.'" Pressed between an approaching army and the waters of the Red Sea, Israel was told to be still. Hard-pressed by the burdens of life, we rarely allow ourselves to be still enough to trust God. Certainly, that's not our natural inclination.

In 1 Kings 19:11, 12 the prophet Elijah was told by God, when feeling overwhelmed by Jezebel's threats after defeating the prophet's of Baal: "The LORD said, 'Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the LORD, for the LORD is about to pass by.' Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the LORD, but the LORD was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake came a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper."

A gentle whisper. How often do we stand still long enough to hear this whisper? "Be still, and know that I am God," Psalm 46:10 tells us. How often do I slow down enough to know God, to hear him and to benefit from the quiet of being in his presence? Though we spend most of our time surrounded by noise, sometimes we have to stand still and slow down and let ourselves hear that "still, small voice." And sometimes the first thing God says to us is "Shhh."