Friday, March 28, 2025
(click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)
Wordless 1
Take with you words, and return to the Lord.
And usually we do. We pray with words. In doing so we discover a path, returning to the Lord. We make lists of people and projects that we offer up to God for his blessing. These prayers rest easily on our tongues, and we hope they rest easily on God’s plate, where he can get at them quickly to send them back with a stamp of approval, flying back to us on the wings of angels.
We shall say no more to the work of our hands.
My desire is to surrender these petitions to our Father, and then let them go. My hands won’t get me anywhere; I transfer the work to the Trinity. At the same time, as Teresa of Avila might have said, “Our hands are God’s hands here on earth.” When God guides me into action, then my hands become tools in the hands of God. “Straight are the paths of the Lord; in them the just walk, while sinners stumble in them.”
I am the Lord your God; hear my voice.
This of course is a problem, especially if we use up all our time together talking rather than listening. With other people and especially with God, listening matters more than speaking. Always. God’s voice is hard to discern if we don’t listen much.
I hear an unfamiliar voice. “In distress you called, and I rescued you.”
Why is that voice unfamiliar? Not because God is silent; I will never believe that. It’s because we haven’t learned to be still, wait, and listen.
Unseen, I answered you in thunder. Hear my people, and I will admonish you; O Israel, will you not hear me? I am the Lord your God, who led you forth from the land of Egypt.
When I am silent, when I wait and listen, then the thunder I thought was just a rainstorm sometimes turns out to be God’s voice. How close is the Kingdom of heaven? My freedom grows, and I move more easily from my ordinary self to the spiritual self which is where I am made to live. Instead of confusing myself with my own thoughts and hopes and plans, I am carried along by God’s knowledge of my soul. The joy of the Lord is my strength. Although this is the way of the God  and joy is his middle name, stillness and silence, the waiting at the mouth of the cave as did Elijah, takes everyday practice for me. Still, God encourages …
You are not far from the Kingdom of God.
(Hosea 14, Psalm 81, Matthew 4, Mark 12)
(posted at www.davesandel.net)
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