It is often dark at the foot of the lighthouse.

El, God, the Lord speaks,
and summons the earth to come from the east and west.

From Zion, the most beautiful of all places,
God comes in splendor.
Our God approaches and is not silent;
consuming fire goes ahead of him
and all around Him a storm rages.
He summons the heavens above,
as well as the earth, so that He might judge His people. Psalm 50:1-4

Fairest Lord Jesus, ruler of all nature,
O Thou of God and man the Son,
Thee will I cherish, Thee will I honor,
Thou, my soul’s glory, joy and crown.

Fair are the meadows, fairer still the woodlands,
Robed in the blooming garb of spring;
Jesus is fairer, Jesus is purer,
Who makes the woeful heart to sing.

Fair is the sunshine,
Fairer still the moonlight,
And all the twinkling starry host;
Jesus shines brighter, Jesus shines purer
Than all the angels Heav’n can boast.

All fairest beauty, heavenly and earthly,
Wondrously, Jesus, is found in Thee;
None can be nearer, fairer or dearer,
Than Thou, my Savior, art to me.

Beautiful Savior! Lord of all the nations!
Son of God and Son of Man!
Glory and honor, praise, adoration,
Now and forever more be Thine. –German Jesuits,1677

We know that we are from God, and the whole world lies in the power of the evil one. And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know Him who is true; and we are in Him who is true, in his Son Jesus Christ. I John 5:19-20

Lord, help us become so familiar with Your word and with Your presence that thoughts of You consume our waking moments and holy fear of You brings us to worship. Then even our smallest actions will speak of You. Amen.

 

Yesterday afternoon the Monday night ladies gathered together to watch Scorsese’s

 Silence. Roger Ebert writes, “You want to act, or you want the movie to act, to stop the suffering, but the suffering continues until finally it doesn't. We're watching men of God being tested. Try as they might, they cannot entirely wrap their minds around the purpose of the test, and when they do grapple with it, they worry that they've arrived at the wrong conclusion. They worry that they’ve missed the point; that they're not faithful enough or smart enough to understand why this horror exists, or must exist.”

 And certainly there are no easy answers. But what struck me again and again was the gentle humility and sweet love of the Christ-followers who were consumed by thoughts of Him, and although there were many things that they did not understand, each day they were willing to pick up their daily crosses and follow Him.

One of the characters, Kichirjiro, fails the test in fear again and again, and each time he asks for and receives forgiveness.

And my heart filled with longing to be walk in this gentle humility and brokenness, willing to rest only in the belief that I am Your child and that I may know You who is true and that I am in Him who is true, the Lord Jesus Christ, and may that be enough.

And sometimes it sounds as if He is silent as we walk through the valleys of the shadow of death. But He promises that He is not silent, that He has spoken and declared what is true. And the still soft voice whispered to Rodriguez that He had been with him each step of the way.

And surely we cannot understand the horror that lies around us, whether in South Sudan and Somalia or Egypt or Syria, or in the very trailer parks from which my kiddos walk each day. And the Evil One is doing his best to wreck brokenness onto this fairest creation. But Matteo shared a video of how the Swedes responded in humility and brokenness, in the beauty of love and hope, when evil smashes through.

May even my smallest actions speak of You.

May it be so, Fairest Lord Jesus.

 

 

 

Be still my soul; the LORD is on thy side.

For God alone my soul in silence waits; truly, my hope is in Him. Psalm 62:6

Truly.

And in every which way possible, I am a chatty person. Not in the good sense.

One of those sorts of people who always raises her hand first with my answer or especially blurts out my answer while everyone else is processing.  Before my brain and heart even engage.

In conversations I have to pause, take a deep breath, and choose to listen rather than let my mind gallop on ahead to where I am going next.

And oh, those imaginary conversations that hamster wheel around in my head, spinning and spinning into empty anxiety.

But the heart of the call here deals with my stepping into the Throne room of grace, standing before my LORD God in full bore prattle.

Full of excuses. Accusations. Murmuring. Suggestions as to how He could be doing a better job. 

Be still.

Take off your shoes and fall on your face, for I AM Holy.

Be still.

In silence wait.

Stand back and you will be amazed. 

He did not come like a rushing mighty wind. But gradually the Person of the Holy Ghost filled all our thoughts, His Presence filled all the place, and His light seemed to penetrate all the hidden recesses of our hearts. -Rees Howells

Praise the LORD from the earth, you sea-monsters and all deeps; Fire and hail, snow and fog, tempestuous wind, doing his will; Mountains and all hills, fruit trees and all cedars; Wild beasts and all cattle, creeping things and winged birds; Kings of the earth and all peoples, princes and all rulers of the world; Young men and maidens, old and young together. Let them praise the Name of the LORD, for His Name only is exalted, His splendor is over earth and heaven. Psalm 148:6–13

Perspective.

These have been quiet days. The gunk which is sweeping Tucson laid me flat on my back for five days and counting. Lots and lots of quiet. Well, except for the hacking cough. And it has been one of those gripping headache sicknesses where I have felt too lousy to even read; just a page or two and then quiet. Quiet under the February blueness and surrounded by Alan’s peonies. And Pippen is always snuggled somewhere in the midst of the Hosterman knit blanket.

Praying through Rees Howell battling the Nazis long hour after long hour, front after front, faithful and unrelenting. The battle is not against flesh and blood but principalities and against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world. What does it mean to be an intercessor, one who stands in the gap.

Reading Passage to India that captures all peoples so clearly.

Perspective.

And it has been a Lenten time of repentance. Confessing ingratitude. Expectations. Resentment. Accusation. Tools of the Evil One straight from the first temptation in the Garden which smashed the joyous unity with Him.  Allowing His loving claws to rake down deeply through the dragon skin that surrounds my heart.

In the light of His purity, it was not so much sin we saw as self. We saw pride and self-motives underlying everything we had ever done. -Rees Howells, Intercessor

And now it has been eight days and counting. Gladden the soul of your servant, for to you, O LORD, I lift up my soul.

And this has been my prayer for myself on Saturday, every Saturday, for years upon years: LORD please make me ever aware of Your Spirit, moment-by-moment wisdom, quicken my spirit to immediate, full-of-faith obedience.  Cause me to be thankful…this obedience results in a joy that brings glory to you.  

And I slip up so often on this moment-by-moment wisdom.

Quicken my spirit to immediate, full-of-faith obedience.

And for me, wisdom usually equals silence.

And obedience usually means silence.

Usually. Intercessor. Allowing the Spirit to groan deeply within.

And to stand back. And let Him do His thing.

But He showed us, 'There is all the difference in the world between your surrendered life in my hands, and I living My life in your body.' We read the Acts afresh, and found we were reading, not the acts of the apostles, but the acts of the Holy Ghost. -Rees Howells, Intecessor

So I read Acts as well. Afresh.

And sometimes obedience is not silence, but a bold leap into words. Sometimes. Just this week, I felt the familiar tug: God longs to demonstrate His great love and power by removing that tumor… and the next day I received this email:

I just want to share this:

I went to get the magnetic resonance yesterday. The radiologist (if that is how you say it in English, haha) looked at the X-rays and the results from the other tests. He asked me a set of questions. Then, they put me in the capsule for about 40 minutes. They took me out and he said he was confused because he did not see anything, he even asked me about the X-rays, he asked me if those were recent, and I told him they were from this week. So, although he seemed to be confused, he told me he was going to run another resonance so they put my body half way into the capsule and ran another test for about 30 minutes. In the end, he told me he cannot explain himself because what is reflected in the X-rays did not show up in the images in the magnetic resonance. Inside my head, I kept thinking, he cannot explain it but I can, I know God has his ways. 

Praise the LORD from the earth, you sea-monsters and all deeps; Fire and hail, snow and fog, tempestuous wind, doing his will; Mountains and all hills, fruit trees and all cedars; Wild beasts and all cattle, creeping things and winged birds; Kings of the earth and all peoples, princes and all rulers of the world; Young men and maidens, old and young together. Let them praise the Name of the LORD, for His Name only is exalted, His splendor is over earth and heaven. 

And somehow all of this craziness and pain and beauty and delight and heartbreak and sea-monsters and fire and tempestuous wind is to His exaltation. King of the earth and all peoples. Praise the LORD.

And today’s Joy Dare was for the ugly-beautiful gifts, for example this ugly cough and the beautiful silence. His gift.

Silence.

Words.

And His wisdom to know the difference.