Oh that I might forever be silent before Thee and learn to listen, 'those who have ear to hear'...
That I might still the compulsion to inform out of some vague mixing of educated thought, and fleeting imagination of editorial opinion and clever word smithing. How much harm have we done by right motives perhaps, but prayer-less projection?
How can we utter such grandiose visions and explanations, even to attribute them to You, that You Yourself have stated such and such as so, when the heart and spirit are so beggarly and obviously wanting. Oh we have sinned greatly in this matter, teaching the commandments of men as attributes of a Holy God. That all the world become silent before Thee and Your servants repent in dust and ashes of the heart for the slighting and smooth things we have let slip from our unclean lips, that which we hardly take notice of.
We have become altogether restless and irritable with each other, drawn to controversy and contention, but not to prayer, not to a deeper and truer expression. To the authentic that betrays words and yet communicates from the Spirit that dwells in us. He that is to guide us into all truth, yet we have allowed to follow, grieved since our pride must be out front and do the works, fruitless, barren, fit for nothing but to be burned and discarded.
Our thoughts are not Your thoughts, but we do not believe it in practice, nor in example. We have busied ourselves with what we think best, what we think needs statement, our emotions ruling the roost. What we do not know we make fact, what we ought to disclose, we hide, we still go astray in our hearts. We are compulsory, reactionary, impatient, seeing shades of gray as black and white, and black and white as shades of gray. Clever for cleverness sake, witty to show our wisdom, fast to speak and slow to hear, fast to anger and slow to ponder. We refuse to heed, to muse and brood, to consider, to still the machinery of the mind, even long enough to give ear to what the Spirit says to the Churches.
We are all to easily offended, to jump to conclusions, to read into instead of between the lines. "Are you saying?" has the suspicion built into it as we deal with one another, we suppose and pronounce guilty before the trial, not considering our hypothesis might well be flawed. We take offense at 'we', at "I", at [i]You[/i]though we deny it. We may be well studied, but not examined, blocking the Light that it might search us and find us out and expose our true selves before all. So we go erring in our hearts and aping in our conduct, pretending, and covering and hiding.
We will not test those who come in Your name as 'prophets', spokesman and orators who often reveal by their offense at being held to the requirements of truth, that they are but wells without water, clouds that are carried with a tempest, injured and indignant rather than rejoicing that it is more noble to be put to the test.
And this man, these words, bring indictment on my own head. How often I have failed, how often I have allowed myself to turn away and be swept up in a tide of emotion. To share this but could wish that all could be overlooked of the pen and the hand to grasp at what matters to You, Oh Lord.
Let us settle for nothing less than authenticity. Let us not suppose to be teachers before we have been taught. Give us a willingness to be transparent in heart and more honest in speech. Forgo our penchant to pronounce that which we don't grasp as fact, our yes to be yes, our no to be no and are maybes to lie dormant. Let us accept challenge without offense and lay our lives down for each other. Our persuasions and traditions given pause to consider, that we may be wrong after all.
Father, give us a real sense of our need and ears to hear. Open our eyes to what is Your will, to what is needed, to what is prudent, to what it is we ought to be about in Your business. Give us a real childlike spirit and revealing of who You are as You are, that we might fear you with reverence. Pour new meaning into Your word, Thy word is truth and it is only new to our understanding, having been settled before the foundations of the world.
For You are Holy and we are vile. We have lost our gasping and awe, our wondering of majesty, the meaning of mercy and the depths of grace that You have bestowed on us. Give us a half hour of silence before Thee, that we might once again begin to worship in spirit and in truth. Let us see afresh Your Son.
Jesus.
The Lord. My Lord and my God. Our Lord and our God.
Let us be astounded at this. Bring home to our senses, that incredible salvation that is evident in our souls, that Your Holy Spirit, that He lives in us. Give us an appreciation for what has transpired within us in an ever ongoing way. That we have been saved to the uttermost at so great a cost that we will never really grasp. Bring us I pray Lord to this reality. That which is perfect being subject to all that is unholy. Darkness could not overtake Him, death could not keep Him, unbelief ever deny Him, yet He forever lives.
[i] Wherefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our profession, Christ Jesus; Who was faithful to him that appointed him, as also Moses was faithful in all his house. For this man was counted worthy of more glory than Moses, inasmuch as he who hath builded the house hath more honour than the house. For every house is builded by some man; but he that built all things is God. And Moses verily was faithful in all his house, as a servant, for a testimony of those things which were to be spoken after;
But Christ as a son over his own house; whose house are we, if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end. Wherefore (as the Holy Ghost saith, To day if ye will hear his voice, Harden not your hearts, as in the provocation, in the day of temptation in the wilderness: When your fathers tempted me, proved me, and saw my works forty years. Wherefore I was grieved with that generation, and said, They do alway err in their heart; and they have not known my ways. So I sware in my wrath, They shall not enter into my rest.)
Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God. But exhort one another daily, while it is called To day; lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. For we are made partakers of Christ, if we hold the beginning of our confidence stedfast unto the end; While it is said, To day if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts, as in the provocation. For some, when they had heard, did provoke: howbeit not all that came out of Egypt by Moses.
But with whom was he grieved forty years? was it not with them that had sinned, whose carcases fell in the wilderness? And to whom sware he that they should not enter into his rest, but to them that believed not? So we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief.
Let us therefore fear, lest, a promise being left us of entering into his rest, any of you should seem to come short of it. For unto us was the gospel preached, as well as unto them: but the word preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it. For we which have believed do enter into rest, as he said, As I have sworn in my wrath, if they shall enter into my rest: although the works were finished from the foundation of the world.
For he spake in a certain place of the seventh day on this wise, And God did rest the seventh day from all his works. And in this place again, If they shall enter into my rest. Seeing therefore it remaineth that some must enter therein, and they to whom it was first preached entered not in because of unbelief:
Again, he limiteth a certain day, saying in David, To day, after so long a time; as it is said, To day if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts. For if Jesus had given them rest, then would he not afterward have spoken of another day.
There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God.
For he that is entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from his own works, as God did from his. Let us labour therefore to enter into that rest, lest any man fall after the same example of unbelief.
For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight: but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do. Seeing then that we have a great high priest, that is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession. For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.[/i]
Hebrews 3, 4
Father, give us the ability to slow down and ponder all that these words mean and in all our breathing into our souls every word that You have spoken to us.
I am forever thankful _________________ Mike Balog
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