Minister's Message: Be still and know that I am God.
(Psalm 46:10)
It is not easy for me to be silent. To pause, listen, to stop doing and allow my spirit, my body, my mind to rest quietly. I’m a man of action, always on the go.
Am I afraid of what the silence may say?
Life at this time for me seems betwixt and between: what was, what is and what will be. Letting go, trusting, believing that in the silence there may be found ‘the soft whisper of a voice’ (read Elijah’s encounter with God in 1 Kings 19).
Being still so God can speak.
The fall ends, winter begins. A house is unsold, I wait impatiently for the next step. I was caught on the winter’s first snowfall in Sutton without snow tires. I was not ready and I was anxious. Unprepared. Caught unawares.
As this beautiful prayer says: Waiting, looking, loving...it seems that Advent is right around the corner!
Be still and in the silence hear the soft whisper of God’s voice.
You keep us waiting.
You, the God of all time,
want us to wait
for the right time in which to discover
who we are, where we must go,
who will be with us, and what we must do.
Thank you . . . for the waiting time.
You keep us looking.
You, the God of all space,
want us to look in all the right and wrong places
for signs of hope,
for people who are hopeless,
for visions of a better world which will appear
among the disappointments of the world we know.
Thank you . . . for the looking time.
You keep us loving.
You, the God whose name is love,
want us to be like you—
to love the loveless and the unlovely and the unloveable;
to love without jealousy or design or threat;
and, most difficult of all,
to love ourselves.
Thank you . . . for the loving time.
And in all this,
you keep us.
Through hard questions with no easy answers;
through failing where we hoped to succeed
and making an impact when we felt we were useless;
through the patience and the dreams and the love of others;
and through Jesus Christ and his spirit,
you keep us.
Thank you . . . for the keeping time,
and for now,
and for ever.
Amen.
Iona Community, Scotland (Celebrate God’s Presence, UCC, p.88-89)
Rev. David