SILENT & STILL WITHIN BOUNDARIES

I love to learn; to play around with thoughts and ideas; to put those thoughts and ideas into words and write them out on paper; to read how other people have looked at life and figured things out; I love it all.  But in the end, after all is said and done, I have been brought to this conclusion; “God is in heaven and you are on earth; therefore let your words be few” (Ecclesiastes 5:1).

Of course the words haven’t been few, but many.  Books upon books have been written about God.  Theologians and philosophers have spoken and written many things about who God is and what He has done.  In my younger years I read and listened to all anyone had to say about how God works, lives, and has His being.  I listened to the arguments and chose my side, and at time came up with my own third way of seeing things.  I don’t regret those years, but something has changed for me.

I began to experience the truth the “knowledge puffeth up” and I became uncomfortable being with myself.  An arrogance slipped in unnoticed, disguised as being well educated.  I began speaking for God to others and to God more as an equal rather than His child.  Again I experienced the truth that “one who increases knowledge increases sorrow”.  I think Peter experienced these feelings several times when he put himself on equal terms with Jesus; once when he started telling Jesus what to do after he had just declared who Jesus was.  A second time came when he was on the mountain where Moses and Elijah appeared to speak with Jesus.  Peter began ordering the event, only to be stopped by God’s voice telling him who to listen to.  Peter, like me and all human beings can take our intimate relationship with God and run far beyond the boundaries, being a little too big for our britches.  This is where I had come and when I realized it the sorrow came.

I had become someone I didn’t like being around.  I became critical and judgmental, all robed in a false sense of righteousness.  In humility I repented out of a heart knowledge that I was out of bounds.  Simply knowing and being in an intimate relationship is enough for me.  I enjoy being silent and still in God’s Presence.  I have been weaned of impressing others and myself of all of my accumulated knowledge and credentials.  I don’t need to know anything more than Him.  He speaks to me as I watch and enjoy the natural world that surrounds me.  He speaks to me as I read the Scriptures, giving me little treasures of thought to dwell on throughout the day.  I come to know Him and know myself better through His eyes.  That helps me to know how to respond to others and to the life I live in a contemplative way.  My desire is to sit in silence and stillness, to listen as He speaks, and to observe and obey all that He reveals to me.  That is enough for me.