Congo Hope Blog

In quietness and confidence shall be your strength. Isaiah 30:15 It seems as though God is forever telling the Israelites to return to Him. Return from their idolatry. Return from their immorality. Return from their abandoning of Him. . . Return. Return. Return. This passage is yet another call for His people to come back, repent, relinquish and live. As with the Israelites, so with us. Return. . . This verse in as incredible promise for true success, and it's not by might nor by power, but by His Spirit, we are to press on and experience that success. In His Presence is fullness of joy. By His Mighty Right Hand. . . Be still and let me, and know that I am God. These are the actions required of us in our return. There is nothing so valuable in this life as to be quiet before the Lord. A shutting down of the external. A calming down. A cooling of our jets so to speak. A state of receiving instead of giving, except the total giving ourselves to the One Who is calling us. Come, He says. Sit. Be quiet. Fill your mind with Me. Let everything else go. And it is personally one of the greatest challenges for me. I am a doer. I like check lists. I succumb to time restraint. I have a hard time sitting still. But in the doing, in the checking off of lists, in the not sitting still, and in the succumbing of myself to time restraints, I forfeit the valuable quietness, that peace hovering confidence, and succumb to stress and frustration. . . and emptiness. I get all tangled up inside. I cannot think straight. I fall into a pit. I love these inviting verses that bid us come: "In the morning You hear my voice, O Lord; in the morning I prepare a prayer. . . for You and watch and wait for You to speak to my heart." Ps 5:3 "I will thank You and confide in You forever, because You have . . . delivered me and kept me safe. I will wait on, hope in and expect in Your name. . ." Ps 52:9 . . . "For my soul takes refuge and finds shelter and CONFIDENCE in You; yes, in the shadow of Your wings will I take refuge and be CONFIDENT until calamities and destructive storms are passed." Ps 57:1 Sitting quietly before God is exactly where I regain my spiritual equilibrium and confidence in the Lord. No where else. Sitting at the feet of Jesus stills the storms, quiets the soul, and strengthens the spirit to taste the Lord and see that He is good. It restores our souls, rekindles our love for Him, and returns the hope we so desperately need in our lives to keep operating. In quietness. Not in doing. Not in fixing. Not in rearranging. From that silence to use a very mediocre term, He rubs off on me. He becomes the preeminent One. He changes me from glory to glory, not my glory, of course, but His. He becomes my Reality. And though Colossians says He is my life, by nestling in the joy of His Presence, He in a larger, more palpable form shows His life to be in me. So I leave one of my favorite Psalms with you today. It is my prayer for you and for me: "Lord, my heart is not haughty, nor my eyes lofty; neither do I exercise myself in matters too great or in things too wonderful for me. Surely I have calmed and quieted my sou; like a weaned child with his mother, like a weaned child is my soul within me ceased from fretting." Psalm 131:1,2