Thursday, July 27, 2023
(click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)
God shows himself
On the morning of the third day there were peals of thunder and lightning, and a heavy cloud over the mountain, and a very loud trumpet blast.
God told them he was coming. Wash your clothes, no sex, sanctify yourselves, be ready. Be sure not to touch the mountain. I try to imagine that night before.
We have been told the Lord is coming soon, but for all the generations since those words we think we’ve seen … nothing. These days I am changing my perspective and thinking the Lord has been here all along. The peals of thunder and trumpet blasts are over, and now God makes himself known with a still, small voice.
Blessed are your eyes, because they see, and your ears, because they hear. Many prophets and righteous people longed to see what you see but did not see it, and to hear what you hear but did not hear it.
God’s still, small voice, when I take time to sit and listen, is whispering the most real, loving words I ever hear. They might come when I’m making scrambled eggs for Margaret and me, or when my fingers are poised above the keyboard, or when we are walking in to say hi to our apartment managers and getting our mail. The words come out of Miles’ mouth, and Jasper’s, and many others, especially when even the adults are seeking their child-likeness, and when I am too.
Moses led the people out of the camp to meet God. In the midst of the smoke, the fire, the trembling of the mountain and the trumpet blasts, Moses spoke and God answered him with thunder.
Ten Commandments director Cecil B. DeMille would not see any production values in my scenario. There are no blockbuster movies made about the day Elijah sat at the mouth of his cave and spoke with God. Most microphones can’t pick up the “still, small voice.” Silence does not carry much of a wallop. But when God is “silent” in this way, I want to listen. While I’m waiting, I am fascinated to read Exodus 19 and then 1 Kings 19, and see the way the Lord speaks into our lives, through our leaders, through each other, through ourselves.
Henri Nouwen extends this personal intimacy into the art of praying for others:
When we say to people, “I will pray for you,” we can learn to descend with our mind into our heart, where all those who have become part of our lives are led into the healing presence of God and touched by him in the center of our being. We are speaking here about a mystery for which words are inadequate. It is the mystery that the heart, which is the center of our being, is transformed by God into his own heart, a heart large enough to embrace the entire universe. Through prayer we can carry in our heart all human pain and sorrow, all conflicts and agonies, all torture and war, all hunger, loneliness, and misery, not because of some great psychological or emotional capacity, but because God’s heart has become one with ours.
When Jesus spoke about his disciples doing “greater things,” this way of prayer is surely one of them. No thunder, lightning, trumpet blasts … our clothes need not be clean – not laundered at least. No hyssop necessary this time, just the still small touch of God on my forehead, on my cheek, on the center of my chest, on my soul.
(Exodus 19, Daniel 3, Matthew 11, Matthew 13)
(posted at www.davesandel.net)
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