We are a world that is in perpetual motion. We run full bore from the minute we climb out of bed until the moment we collapse back into bed at night. Then once we climb back into bed at night we roll around and find ourselves not able to sleep; our bodies are exhausted, but our minds are still racing, thinking of a million things. Our cell phones are never out of arms reach. Even weekends and vacations are of no help; we take our work and our technology with us wherever we go.   

The beginning of the long holiday season is just two weeks away, and with it comes perpetual motion. From Thanksgiving to Christmas most of us are in a constant state of “full speed ahead.” And during the holidays we also often replace trips to the gym with trips to overcrowded malls, buying more and more gifts. Seriously, does your brother really need another titanium driver to put in his golf bag? And we replace quiet evenings at home with holiday parties, school concerts, extra hours at work to finish up year end projects.

Before the craziness begins is a perfect time to look over your own life and intentionally build times of silence and quietness into your schedule. Your body needs down time to rest and recharge, and your soul needs times of silence and quietness in order to hear God’s voice. God sometimes speaks in loud tones, but most often He speaks to us in gentle whispers (see 1 Kings 19:11-12).

It is really hard to hear God’s voice if you do not build times into your daily routine to dial down and simply be at rest. Psalm 46:10 tells us that we are to “be still and know that I am God.” And among other things, Isaiah 30:15 tells us that “in quietness and trust is your strength.” Two other be still and silent verses come to mind: Psalm 37:7 and 62:5.

Being still and blocking out the distractions helps us focus on what God is doing in us and around us. Samuel, Israel’s last judge, was passing the baton to Saul, who would become their first king. In Samuel’s farewell address, he instructs the people to be “stand still” in order to both be reminded of God’s past and current righteous acts (1 Samuel 12:7) and see His divine power (12:16).   

If you know anything about wheels, then you know that they turn around an axle. There are two types of axles – live and dead. Live axles rotate with the wheels, transferring engine power to the wheels, whereas dead axles are simply load bearing. In rear-wheel drive vehicles, the rear axle is live and the front axle, dead. In front-wheel drive vehicles, the opposite.

So, in either case, even when the wheel is turning at 65 miles per hour, in the dead axle there is no movement at all. It is static, even as the wheel around it turns. And just as with the axle, while life around you and me turns at a high rate of speed, it is of utmost importance that we find a place where we can go to be alone with God in stillness and quietness. That place of no spinning.  

It takes commitment to carve out time and space to stop turning and slow down your pace of life. The time and space looks different for everyone, but one thing is common among all who say they regularly hear from God… they spend time in His presence, away from the speed of life.

So today and throughout the upcoming holidays, I encourage you are be counter cultural and amid the busyness, also slow down. Your body will be glad you did, and it gives your soul time to find rest in Jesus.

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Are you the type of person who isn’t satisfied with simply knowing information? Instead, you like to dig into the “who, what, where, when and why.” Last week I wasn’t satisfied with just knowing that there were 538 electoral votes available to the presidential candidates. I wanted to know why it was 538. If you care to know, the answer is each state gets a certain number of electors based upon its representatives in Congress, plus three for the District of Columbia.

Sometimes it is fine to just look above the surface while other times it might be important to dig a little deeper. One area we often try to figure out, and always come up short, is trying to understand the ways of God. God works how God works and it is up to us to be faithful. If we knew all the answers to how and why God works, it wouldn’t really be faith now would it? And even if we knew those answers, we wouldn’t always understand (see Isaiah 55:8-9).

In the Old Testament book of Job, one of Job’s friends, Zophar, asks him this question regarding God’s supreme power, His unfathomable wisdom, and the reasons for His actions – “Do you think you can explain the mystery of God? Do you think you can diagram God Almighty? God is far higher than you can imagine, far deeper than you can comprehend, stretching farther than earth’s horizons, far wider than the endless ocean” (Job 11:7-9, MSG). Zophar was seemingly under the false impression that he had access to the deep things of God, thereby allowing him to torment his friend for not holding the key to knowing God’s ways.

At the end of the 11th Chapter in the Book of Romans we read this doxology – “Oh, the depths of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out! Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor? Who has ever given to God, that God should repay them? For from him and through him and for him are all things. To him be the glory forever! Amen” (11:33-36)

Our role, as followers of Jesus, is simple. We are called to be obedient and trust God in all things, even when those things don’t make sense. Proverbs 3:5 (using CEV) tells us, “With all your heart you must trust the LORD and not on your own judgment.” That verse is the what and v.6 gives us the why – “Always allow him to lead you, and he will clear the road for you to follow.” Other versions say, “he will make your path straight” or “he will show you which path to take”.   

So today, focus less on trying to figure out the whys and why nots of God and more on trusting that He is in control and that His plan, His path, is way better than any plan or path you could ever dream up. Yes, even better than the yellow brick road.

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Humility is not a concept often used or demonstrated these days. We live in a culture that is full of showboating, you know, that excessive and often annoying behavior done after someone has “done something good” that is intended to bring attention to the person doing the showboating. The term “showboating” is derived from the theatrical performances produced on riverboats on the Mississippi River in the late 19th century. These riverboats became known as showboats and the verb “to showboat” comes from that origin.  

Just turn on the television and watch any sporting event. You will not have to watch too long before you see a player make a good play and after the play is over that player “showboats,” as if to say, look at me, look what I’ve done!

Sometimes showboating even becomes a craze. From 1988 to 1991 fullback Elbert “Ickey” Woods played for the NFL’s Cincinnati Bengals. When he scored a touchdown, he performed a celebration that became famously known as the “Ickey Shuffle.” Woods would shuffle his feet to the right while holding the football out to the right, do the same moves to the left, then do three hops to the right, all before spiking the ball into the ground. This showboating led the NFL to create a rule against “Excessive Celebration” which is enforced as a penalty against that team. While Ickey Woods has not played professional football for more than twenty years, his famous end zone dance lives on. Click here to watch a one-minute video highlighting the NFL’s most famous dancer.

Jesus describes an incident of showboating in Luke 18:9-14. In this parable, two men, a Pharisee and a tax collector, went to the temple to pray. The Pharisee thanked God that he was not a sinner like the other people, especially that lowly tax collector. Maybe even this religious leader did his own version of the “Ickey Shuffle” as he exalted himself (arrogance, spiritual pride). The tax collector, on the other hand, would not even look up toward heaven as he beat his breast and cried out, “God have mercy on me, a sinner” (v.13).

What Jesus said next caught everyone off guard. He said that the tax collector is the one made right before God, not the Pharisee. He concludes this parable by saying, “I tell you this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted” (v. 14).

We find this warning in James 4:13-16 – “Come now, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit’ – yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, ‘If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.’ As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil.”

And Solomon, in pushing back against boasting, said this – “Let someone else praise you, and not your own mouth; an outsider, and not your own lips” (Proverbs 27:2).

Celebrate your accomplishments in a way that brings honor and glory to God and not in a way that says, “look at me.” And as many football coaches have told their team, “When you get to the end zone, act like you’ve been there before.”

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This is a post-election revised edition of a writing from earlier this year. I trust it to be needed by us all.  

Okay, here we are. The morning after. Do you feel exhausted, empty, drained? Physical exhaustion. Mental exhaustion. Emotional exhaustion. Social exhaustion. 24 hours a day news exhaustion. The current climate in our country certainly is nothing short of chaos, absurd, frightening, divisive, and I could add any number of more adjectives, all of which lead us to exhaustion.  

In my opinion, one of the toughest things in our crowded, loud, and chaotic world, is to create enough space and silence to find genuine rest and calm. Whether or not chaos finds us, or we create our own chaos, its effects all around us seep deep into our souls. Even when we are away from constant noise, our heart, mind, and souls are not really quieted. Even when we are at rest, our heart, mind, and souls are not restful. Even when we put our heads on the pillow to sleep, we don’t really sleep well, which then brings on even more fatigue.

This constant clutter in our heart, mind, soul also makes it difficult to hear God’s “still, small voice”. But if we are to follow Jesus in a serious life-changing way, we must find regular time to be quiet and listen. There are many voices competing for our attention and loyalty, and most often God is not the loudest of those voices.

While God is always by our side offering advice, He is not like The Great Gazoo in the old animated TV series, The Flintstones; that tiny green floating scientist who came to help Fred and Barney, but usually created more trouble than help.  

Building the discipline of hearing God, waiting on God, resting in His presence, requires work. It begins with a desire to carve out space. It always requires giving up something, desiring to turn off the noise and find stillness (Psalm 37:7), find quietness (Zephaniah 3:17), find intimacy (James 4:8), find rest (Matthew 11:28-30).

The 23rd Psalm begins with these words – “The LORD is my shepherd; I have everything I need. He lets me rest in fields of green grass and leads me to quiet pools of fresh water. He gives me new strength” (vv.1-3a GNT).

Timothy Leary, the Harvard clinical psychologist, and of hippie fame, encouraged young people in the Sixties to “turn on, tune in, drop out.” While his countercultural phrase encouraged the usage of psychedelic drugs to find true consciousness, and that’s certainly not my advice, I do think that if we “turn on” a sensitivity to God and His presence, if we “tune in” by listening, and if we regularly “drop out” of the noise around us, we will “find” God and be better able to hear, and be changed by, His “still, small voice.”

“Be still, and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth!” (Psalm 46:10).

“For God alone, O my soul, wait in silence, for my hope is from him” (Psalm 62:5).

“Teach me, and I will be silent; make me understand how I have gone astray” (Job 6:24).

“But I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother; like a weaned child is my soul within me” (Psalm 131:2).

“I love those who love me, and those who seek me diligently find me” (Proverbs 8:17).

Do you desperately desire peace and calm, stillness and rest? Where are you looking for the cure for your exhaustion?   

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Do you find yourself running after one thing and then another, always looking for the proverbial carousel’s brass ring, which offers you some sort of prize, temporary peace, temporary contentment? Let’s be honest, we all tend to look for peace and contentment in a variety of places, many of which if they provide any satisfaction at all, it is only fleeting. What do we do when the satisfaction is gone? Likely get back on the carousel ride and hope to grab the brass ring again.

God offers a calming peace to those who trust in Him. It is not a brass ring kind of peace; you know, grab it, rejoice in it for a few moments, then give it back to the ride operator.

Instead, He offers a peace that flows like a river. Picture a continually flowing river that brings a perpetual source of nutrients, abundance, and freshness to the land around it. Now let’s read Isaiah 66:12 – “For this is what the LORD says: I will make peace flow to her like a river, and the wealth of nations like a flood; you will nurse and be carried on her hip and bounced on her lap.”  

NOTE: Isaiah 66 is a chapter about rejoicing in Gods ultimate victory. It is the book’s final chapter and in order to get the context of v.12, I encourage you to take time to read all 24 verses. Click here to read Isaiah 66 in its entirety.  

I believe some background for v.12 is found in Isaiah 8:5-10 and 9:6-7.

In 8:6-7, the prophet pictures Assyria, the cruelest enemy Israel (Northern Kingdom) and Judah (Southern Kingdom) ever faced, flooding the entire kingdom, the Euphrates River deluging the land. Then in v.8, the metaphor seemingly changes from an overpowering river (rebellion) to some sort of bird in the sky. However, I don’t think the prophet was implying another predator. Instead, how about the outspread wings belonging to the Lord and despite repeated rebellion, He continues to offer protection.

Prophetic language is often hard to understand. Let me attempt to offer my understanding. These verses are a prophecy from the Lord to Isaiah. The Assyrians will destroy Judah, but the people of Judah should not live in fear. Why no fear? Verse 10 give the answer – because God is with us. The actual Hebrew text reads – for with us God (is). The preposition with us is the Hebrew word im, from which we get `im-mā-nū, which in English is Immanuel. And if you think ahead to Christmas, we know Jesus is named Immanuel, God with us.

Isaiah 9:6-7 – The promise of increasing peace because of the Messiah’s never-ending rule and reign. These are the familiar words we often read at Christmas.

And then in 66:12, the picture shifts to the overflowing river of God’s protection providing peace and prosperity.

As a rebuke of stubborn Israel, and a warning to you and me today, we find these words in Isaiah 48:18 – “If only you had paid attention to my commands, your peace would have been like a river, your well-being like the waves of the sea.”

I see the takeaway as this – trusting the Lord and obeying His commands offers you and me God’s enduring peace and nurturing! Look at 66:12 again: “For this is what the LORD says: I will make peace flow to her like a river, and the wealth of nations like a flood; you will nurse and be carried on her hip and bounced on her lap.”  

Thankfully, God’s faithfulness to His children is never-ending, despite our continuing rebellion (our sinful nature). Will you right now, even if you do not feel worthy of it, accept, and embrace the “peace that flows like a river” offered by a God who cares for you? Will you also dedicate your life to following God, worshipping Him and not the endless gods, the brass rings, offered by the world.

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We live in a country greatly divided. We seem to not agree with one another on anything. In fact, these days we do not even agree to disagree. We name call. We belittle. We demean. We build ourselves up by tearing others down.

We are just days away from what will likely be a very contentious election. The idea of a free and fair election is already being called into question. Some candidates have made it known that they will contest the results, even before the ballots are counted and finalized. My suspicion is that those candidates only intend to question the idea of a free and fair election if do not win. I am all for recounts if recounts are warranted. But to be questioning the validity of an election before the votes are counted seems ludicrous to me. Just my opinion.

Now allow me to share a thought. What if in this volatile and polarized divide in which we find ourselves, we, every one of us, strived to build a bridge to the “other side.” The “other side” being those people or groups of people who do not look, act, or believe the way we look, act, and believe. In its simplest terms, what is a bridge? It is nothing more than a structure built over a divide that allows people to cross from one side to the other, in both directions.

What if we strived for unity with one another. You say, “No, no, no, I will never think or act or believe like them!” That is not what I am asking for. The idea of “No, no, no, I will never think or act or believe like them” is not unity. That is uniformity. God did not create mankind to be uniform. He did not make us all the same. We are all unique (Psalm 139:13-14). But He does ask us to be unified (1 Peter 3:8).

Uniformity is the state of being uniform in views, beliefs, standards, etc. In uniformity there is no allowance or tolerance for differences. I do not think uniformity is possible nor do I advocate for it. Uniformity seeks to eliminate any and all differences, desiring to create sameness. I do not know about you, but sameness sounds boring to me.     

Unity, on the other hand, is the harmony between different groups; the ability to coexist peacefully and respectfully. Unity treats others with respect, tolerating differences. And tolerating is different from understanding.

Unity is messy. It takes work. The apostle Paul penned these words, found in Ephesians 4:3 – “Make every effort to keep unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.” King David wrote this – “How good and pleasant it is when God’s people live together in unity” (Psalm 133:1). In his parting words to his disciples, and I believe to us today, Jesus prayed for his followers to be “brought to complete unity” (John 17:20-23).

In context, all the “unity” verses I have referenced in this writing are given to those of us who are Jesus-followers; the Church universal. But, folks, I see no reason why striving to be or become unified cannot be a Humanity universal narrative. It will take work. It will require give and take. It will require acceptance. It will require humility. It will require tolerance over understanding. It will require quieting our voice and listening.

Borrowing from John Lennon, I offer us this thought – “Imagine all the people living life in peace. You, you may say I’m a dreamer, But I’m not the only one. I hope someday you will join us. And the world will be as one” (“Imagine”). There are some very troublesome lyrics in that song, but the call to be as one (unity) is loud and clear.

So, what if, and this is my challenge to all of us, in this great divide in which we live, each one of us takes a step to build a bridge to the “other side.” What if we strive to turn greatly divided into not greatly united!

Let’s be known as a country, a very diverse group of people, who value unity (oneness) over uniformity (conformity)! Just imagine what that will look like! Let’s go build a bridge!    

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