Waiting in Silence

 

“My soul waits in silence for God only; from Him is my salvation. He only is my rock and my salvation, my stronghold; I shall not be greatly shaken” (Psalm 62:1 – 2).

 

“My soul, wait in silence for God only, for my hope is from Him. He only is my rock and my salvation, my stronghold; I shall not be shaken” (Psalm 62:5 – 6).

 

Pascal said that the most difficult thing for a man to do is to be alone for an hour. A person without distraction will eventually ponder himself, and he may also consider God, His Father and Creator. Being alone is difficult because we do not want to consider ourselves critically, and we don’t really want to confront God, we don’t want to submit to Him.

 

Pascal also thought that the chief benefit a king has is that he is wealthy enough to have perpetual distractions. If you have perpetual distractions then you can avoid looking in the mirror critically and you can avoid thinking about God, you can avoid confronting God.

 

Of course, when the king dies his distractions will be over and he will pay attention to God for the king will have no choice. The same is true of presidents and generals and entertainment icons and the ultra-wealthy; it is true of us all. 

 

We are a people who consume distractions, and in consuming distractions we trade the image of God within us for poison in our souls. We invite the noise of the world, the flesh, and the devil into our heads and hearts and souls, rather than place ourselves before God in silence – and it all usually looks so good! Who wants to spoil the party?

 

In verse 1 the psalmist makes a statement, “My soul waits in silence for God only.”  In verse 5 he gives a command to his soul, “My soul, wait in silence for God only.”

 

There are times we need to have a good talk with ourselves. “Eye, don’t look at that! Hand, don’t do that! Ear, don’t listen to that! Soul, wait in silence for God and only God!”

 

“From Him is my salvation. He only is my rock and my salvation, my stronghold; I shall not be greatly shaken” (62:1b – 2).

 

“My hope is in Him. He only is my rock and my salvation, my stronghold; I shall not be shaken” (62:5b – 6).

 

The idea of salvation brings with it both deliverance from peril and being made whole. Our salvation is our way of life; our way of life indicates what we believe to be our salvation. What our souls feed upon is what we consider to be essential for its life, it is what we believe we can’t do without. What do our hearts and minds consume?

 

The psalmist is clear that God is his salvation, his rock, his hope, and his stronghold. A stronghold is that which can withstand assault and is a safe place. What is our stronghold? To what or to whom do we look for deliverance? Where do we place our hope?

 

Can any of the distractions around us help on that day when we draw our final breath? Can money or entertainment or corporate position or fame or physical appearance or education or pleasure (in whatever form it may be) or power? Can any of these things truly provide wholeness and safety and peace for us? Can any of them give us never-ending hope and security? Can any of them give satisfying and continuous fulness to our soul? Do we see the false promises in our frenzy of marketing, advertising, and wave after wave of political and economic movements?

 

Man became a living soul when God breathed into him – without the breath of God there is no life, there is only walking death, slumber in an opium den.

 

When we know that God is our only salvation, our only hope, our only stronghold – then we know the importance of silence before Him, of waiting on Him, of being centered and focused on Him; listening for Him, listening to Him, and then responding to Him in obedient love and faithfulness in Jesus Christ.

 

“I have composed and quieted my soul; like a weaned child rests upon its mother, my soul is like a weaned child within me” (Psalm 131:2).

 

When we are weaned from the ways of the world system, from the “lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life” (1 John 2:16), then we will have come into the stronghold of God in Christ, then the house of our soul will have been founded upon a rock (Matthew 7:24 – 27).

 

Distractions suck the life from our souls; waiting on God in silence, receiving Christ, embracing Christ Jesus and being embraced by Him – in Him alone there is Life, Life today, Life tomorrow, Life forever.

 

“They that wait for the LORD will gain new strength; they will mount up with wings like eagles, they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint” (Isaiah 40:31).

 

Shall our souls wait in silence for God only…today?

Our Father

 

 

“But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion for him, and ran and embraced him and kissed him…. The father said, “This son of mine was dead and has come to life again; he was lost and has been found.” (Luke 15:20, 24).

 

I have a friend who, like some of us, had a problematic relationship with his dad; it was emotionally and psychologically volatile. As a young man my friend had left home and was living in another state, when his life came crashing down on him. Darkness and despair enveloped him, he had no hope, no where to turn, no refuge, no safe place. What to do? Where to go?

 

He called his father.

 

When his father heard the anguish in his son’s voice he simply said, “Come home son.”

 

Every mile my friend drove on his return to his dad was a mile closer to acceptance, to love, to a safe place; every mile brought him closer to his Daddy.

 

In the story that we term The Prodigal Son, one of the great stories in humanity, indeed, in the universe, the father sees the son a long way off and runs to him, embraces him – holding him tight! – and kisses him. I imagine tears of joy and relief were shed by both the father and the son.

 

Do you think that after the grand celebration, as morning dawned the following day, that the father said to the son, “Now son, before we have breakfast, we need to talk about the past few years and the way you’ve lived”?

 

Do you think that on each following day, for the rest of their lives, that the father said to the son, “Now son, before we do anything else today, we need to talk about the time you took your inheritance and wasted it, the time you rejected me and our family, the time you squandered your life”?

 

Do you think that the father treated his son like a servant? Like an outcast? Do you think that each day the son had to earn his father’s love and trust? Do you think that the son could never measure up to the father’s expectations and that the father continually reminded the son of his failures?

 

Do you think that if the son needed anything, money, clothing, food, that he had to beg and plead with his father?

 

Is this the kind of father that Jesus portrays in this story?

 

Is this the kind of father that Jesus portrays to us in His own life and teaching?

 

“As high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is His lovingkindness toward those who reverence Him. As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us. Just as a father has compassion on his children, so the LORD has compassion on those who reverence Him” (Psalm 103:11 – 13).

 

The Bible teaches us that we are the sons and daughters of God in Jesus Christ; that the very Spirit of our Father lives within us, so that we cry to Him, “Abba (Daddy) Father!” (Rom. 8:15).

 

Consider that our Father made our elder brother, Jesus Christ, “who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him” (2 Cor. 5:21).

 

Consider that Jesus, in dying on the Cross and rising from the dead, did so in order to proclaim the Name (Nature) of the Father to us, His sisters and brothers (Heb. 2:12; Psalm 22:22).

 

Do we really think that such a Father has any desire to remind us, again and again and again, of our time away from Him, our time in the hog pen, our time in a far country? Such a nature, such behavior, would trample on His love and the sacrifice of Jesus, it would make caricatures of them – there would be no good news in the Gospel, it would be just another “bait and switch” religion.

 

Allow your Father to hold you tight today, allow Him to speak to you and to reassure you that you are His daughter, you are His son. Allow Him to bring you back home into the House to which you have always belonged, into the Family in which you will live eternally.

 

You are no longer a stranger, no longer a sinner, no longer an outcast – you are a daughter and a son of the Living God, made pure and holy in Jesus Christ, a saint (holy one), and an heir of God and a coheir with Jesus Christ (Rom. 8:14 – 25).

 

Who will separate us from the love of Christ?...I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom. 8:35, 38 – 39).

 

Can you hear your Father saying, “Come home”?

Our Light and Our Salvation

 

Psalm 27 is part of my reading today, it being the 27^th of July. This is an old, old friend and is ever sweeter as the years pass, sweeter as we spend time together.

 

“The LORD is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The LORD is the defense of my life; whom shall I dread” (27:1).

 

In that Day there will be only one Light, that of the Father and the Lamb (Rev. 21:23; 22:5). If this will be the case then, why not live in that Way now? Why not learn to live in the Light of Christ and the Father, and only in that Light?

 

This requires “Yes” to Jesus Christ and “No” to competing lights and voices and ways of life. The most dangerous competing lights are those which look good and seem reasonable. People may understand when we reject things that are obviously evil, but they seldom understand when we reject things that appear reasonable, good, and even “Christian.”

 

Are we asking ourselves, “Where is Jesus in this? Where is the Cross? Do I see Jesus?” Paul writes, “I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified” (1 Cor. 2:2).

 

“For my father and mother have forsaken me, the LORD will take me up” (27:10).

 

This may be true of biological parents, but it may also be true of the traditions and cultures within which we are raised. The tradition in which Jesus was raised not only forsook Him, it tortured and crucified Him. The hierarchy of the religion in which Jesus was raised plotted His death and sought to destroy His followers. As they have done to the Master, they will do to His disciples, “A slave is not greater than his master. If they have persecuted Me, they will also persecute you” (John 15:20).

 

This can be a very hard thing, choosing Jesus over tradition, choosing Jesus over the pragmatic, choosing Jesus in the midst of religious peer pressure. However, if we are seeking His Face, if we have declared, “Your Face, O LORD, I shall seek” (27:8), then we really have no option. We are as Peter, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have words of eternal life” (John 6:68).

 

My sense is that an element of our pilgrimage is to constantly ask whether we are walking in the Light of Jesus or in lesser lights, including lesser “Christian” lights. Are we hearing the Voice of the Father saying, “This is My beloved Son, with whom I am well-pleased, hear Him!”? (Matthew 17:5).

 

As we lift up our eyes, are we seeing only Jesus? (Matthew 17:8).