A Quiet Life: Revisited

With the holiday season approaching, I need to revisit this series from the archives.

...aspire to live quietly, and to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands, as we instructed you, so that you may walk properly before outsiders and be dependent on no one.

~1 Thess. 4:11-12

 Quiet.  One of my favorite words. One of my favorite things.

...low tones of classical music wafting on the air as I'm curled up with a good book. 

...hushed jazzy voices crooning while I clean our home or prepare a meal.

...absolute stillness of a dark morning lit only by a small lamp and the Word of God.

...crickets chirping outside my window as I fall asleep.

I enjoy a good football game, laughter, and being with friends. Yet it is in the quiet moments of my life that I feel most alive.

My soul craves quiet.

Perhaps it's a reaction to years of going, doing, and spending. Maybe it's a result of endlessly trying to meet others' expectations. I believe it's wisdom gained.

I've spent much of the last few days thinking about what it means to live quietly. I'll be sharing my thoughts here over the coming days and weeks. In the meantime, what does living quietly mean to you?

Thankful Thursday

Praising the Lord this week for:

~a freshly painted living room and kitchen

~the man and the girl I worked with to make it happen

~answered prayers

~refreshment provided by a visit to this church

 ~a new Bible study

~these words...

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. ~1 Peter 1:1-7

Do We Really Need Strong Faith?

I recently heard a pastor share an analogy about faith that has given me much to ponder. Consider a frozen pond. If you walk out on it with great confidence and the ice is thin, the ice will not sustain your weight no matter how much you believe it will.  If you walk out on it with great hesitancy and the ice is thick, the ice will easily sustain your weight no matter how little you believe it will.  The strength of the ice is far more important than the strength of your belief in it.

It doesn't matter how strong our faith is if we're placing it in a weak god.

The god presented in many churches today is a weak, watered down version of the God of the Bible.

We've weakened Him in our emotional "worship" songs that have reduced Him to an object of our affection (often without ever making mention of His Name).  When my husband lost his job, we didn't need a god who was content to let us recline against him, feel him breathe and hear his heartbeat.¹ We needed a God who would strengthen and help us, and cause us to stand upheld by His righteous, omnipotent hand.²

We've weakened Him with sermons that focus on our efforts rather that God's. Many pastors are so busy telling us how to live for God, they forget to tell us why we should. My attempts to obey God's Word will will fall terribly short if I don't have a clear understanding of who God is.

We've weakened Him by our lack of knowledge of Him. He's not a fire-insurance policy. He is the Holy Lord.

I, I am the Lord,
    and besides me there is no savior.
I declared and saved and proclaimed,
    when there was no strange god among you;
    and you are my witnesses,” declares the Lord, “and I am God.
Also henceforth I am he;
    there is none who can deliver from my hand;
    I work, and who can turn it back?”
~Isaiah 43:11-13 (ESV)

The gospel reveals eternal realities about God that we would sometimes rather not face. We prefer to sit back, enjoy our cliches, and picture God as a Father who might help us, all the while ignoring God as a Judge who might damn us. Maybe this is why we fill our lives with the constant drivel of entertainment in our culture - and in the church. We are afraid that if we stop and really look at God in his Word, we might discover that he evokes greater awe and demands deeper worship than we are ready to give him.

~David Platt, Radical: Taking Back Your Faith from the American Dream

We've weakened Him by convincing ourselves that He is here to serve our purposes, rather than us serving His.  We have forgotten about the One who laid aside His rights in order that God's plan might be accomplished.  If there was ever a man who deserved to have His own way, it was Christ. Yet, He did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped (Philippians 2:6).

It's time believers stop settling for a weak god. If we truly worship, know, and serve the God of the Bible, our faith need only be as big as a mustard seed.


¹"The More I Seek You", written by Kari Jobe
²"How Firm a Foundation", written by John Keith