1 Lord, my heart is not proud;
my eyes are not haughty.
I don’t concern myself with matters too great
or too awesome for me to grasp.
2 Instead, I have calmed and quieted myself,
like a weaned child who no longer cries for its mother’s milk.
Yes, like a weaned child is my soul within me. (Psalm 131:1-2)
We must be aware of letting the outside noise of life leak into the walls of our hearts. The clanging of lives brushing past with blocked out days and schedules that prove our importance must never enter the Church either. There is fleeting practice of silence that is missing within our Christian practice. This is unfortunate because our Lord speaks loudest in the stillness of life. It is truly the devil’s scheme to raise the volume of life to a maddening pace and pitch in order to drown out the call of a patient God.
Sunday is about centering ourselves in the eye of these all too present storm. As the Church, we are to be a reprieve from the shouts of our culture, giving the one thing a dying world needs – peace. It is no coincidence that the Psalmist relates spiritual maturity to calm and quiet self. Jesus was found to often pull away to be alone, even when it was detrimental to His ministry. At the height of His popularity and renown, He couldn’t be found. I love to think of our God in this solitude – it is encouraging to know He needed to recharge. If Jesus – who to review was perfectly man AND God – needed to break away from the crowds often, then how much more must we need? We are starving for the solitude of God’s design.
Today, fight for silence. Quiet the soul within you and listen to the Christ who has spoke for ages past. Reflect on what your time is filled with, could it be drowning out the only voice worth hearing?
Lord, thank you for silence. Help us to pursue it. Talk to us in unmistakable ways.
Matt simon blog 