Rev. Ron Sumners
February 9, 1997
A few years ago, a group of scientists from the United States made an expedition into the South American jungles along the Amazon River. They used, of course, native Indian guides. One day after a long hard trek in the morning, they stopped for lunch. Upon finishing, the scientists were ready to be on the move again. They noticed, however, that their Indian guides were making no effort to break camp. One of the scientists asked their interpreter to speak to the guides and see if there were something wrong. The interpreter came back with this message: "We need to take some time for our souls to catch up with our bodies."
This story may be an apt illustration of part of the predicament of contemporary man. One of the hardest things for an activist American to do is stop. We are in such a hurry that we tailgate, always running the risk of a collision on life's highway. An amusing story is told that in Boston, at a busy intersection, a Jewish Rabbi stopped at a red light and was hit from behind by a car driven by a Catholic priest. An Irish bystander, seeing the situation, and anxious to be helpful, hurried over to the priest and said, "Father, how fast was the rabbi going when he backed into you?"
We have difficulty stopping at a red light, not because our cars are so fast, or the brakes defective, but because we are so revved-up we cannot stand to be stopped. It makes for an unhealthy society. Doctors are saying that eighty-five to ninety percent of our illnesses are psychosomatic. Mental institutions across the country are crowded. Counselors and psychiatrists have long waiting lists of patients.
In one of the most telling verses in all of scripture, the Old Testament prophet Isaiah declares the therapy to meet our deepest needs. He says, "They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength . . . (Isaiah 40:31). The strategic thing is that we stop long enough to practice patience, to wait upon the Lord. One of the most helpful yet least-heeded verses in scripture is Psalm 46: 10: "Be still and know that I am God."
Most of us would agree with the intent of this verse, but few of us are ready to do anything about it. A minister warns, "How many times we have looked at our date-books and shaken our heads and said with a smile, 'But I simply do not have time for an hour or half-hour of prayer and meditation today."' It's almost as though we are afraid to be alone; afraid to be away from the noise and confusion of our daily walks; afraid to be in the silent presence of our own thoughts and of God.
So, we run to and fro, turn up the radio, flip on the TV, invite friends in, or go out. We shun silence like the plague. And in the midst of it all, I suspect that all too many of us are haunted by the superficiality of our lives. Albert Camus once confessed that he had lived much of his life on the surface of things and when persons came needing someone to cling to, there was nothing there.
What would it take for us to center our lives around the deep places of God? Some of us will never stop until we are forced. We are like the man who confessed that he had never taken the time to look up until he was flat on his back with a coronary. For many of us it will take a collision to tum us around to see that something is wrong. For when God can't get in through the front door of our lives, He will slip in through the back door.
In a way, this is what happens in that crowning experience in the spiritual pilgrimage of the Old Testament prophet Elijah. Yahweh selects a collision course with the prophet. He literally shakes the prophet out of his self-pity through some unusual manifestations of His power over nature. As the Old Testament writer records, “Behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and broke into pieces the rocks before the Lord; but the Lord was not in the wind; and after the wind, an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake, a fire; but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire, a still small voice."
By witnessing the storm, the prophet's eyes were opened not only to his own weakness but also to the great source of power in God. The wind, the lightening, the earthquake perhaps was reminiscent of his own methods that he had used against Jezebel and her pagan priests. But God was not in these noisy phenomena.
It was in the still, small voice that God became real, not the spectacular physical manifestations, but the voice within. The stormy Elijah was learning the gentleness of true gianthood. The earthquake, wind, and fire may speak of the awe-full power of God but not of the tenderness with which He relates to His children.
The significance of the symbolism in the prophet's experience is that, while comparative impotence may roar in the guise of tempest and fire, omnipotence may move in whispers. Feebleness hides in the apparent overwhelming; Almightiness hides in the apparent weakness. God was in the weak thing. Thus, Elijah left Mount Horeb with his understandings of God entirely changed from what they had been on Mount Carmel.
When driven into the wilderness by some crisis in our life, may we come to this saving insight that Elijah discovered; that God was not in the wind, the earthquake, and the fire, in the spectacular, the noisy and the blatant, but rather, God was speaking in a still, small voice.
Such was the experience of one who found himself in a very hectic and trying period in his life, as the corporation of which he was an officer was purchased by a larger corporation. The pressures seemed to mount daily. Whether there would be a place for him in the new company was uncertain. His responsibilities before had kept him busy ten to twelve hours a day. Now they seemed to be doubling, so that his weekends were taken up as well. He said his life seemed like a bus with hundreds of people shoving and pushing to get on. He would come to the end of the day completely exhausted.
Finally, he decided that this was no good; it was affecting his entire outlook upon life. His whole world seemed to be getting out of control. He found himself driven rather than in the driver's seat. It was all a strange experience for him. Not knowing where else to go, he began to take time out each morning to have a quiet time with the Lord.
He soon sensed order coming out of the chaos in himself, his soul had been restored. Knowing his true identity as a child of God, he was able to deal creatively with the disorder in his life. With a sense of priority, he dealt with the problems. No longer were the passengers in his life frantically crowding to get attention, but they were boarding the bus in an orderly fashion.
How strange it is that most of us have allowed ourselves to be caught in the trap of the "big, better, best" syndrome. If there can only be bands playing and people marching and fireworks blasting then somehow God will see, and hear, and be present, or so we think. But this was not the experience of Elijah! It was not the experience of the Apostle Paul. Writing to the church in Corinth, he says, "God uses the weak things of this world to confound the mighty, he uses the foolish things of this world to confound the wise, the despised things of this world and those things which are not, to bring to naught those things which are, that no flesh shall stand before Him glorying in itself but rather glorying in His presence."
God reveals Himself fully not at Mount Carmel but at Mount Calvary. There we see God in all His weakness. And there a hush of silence falls over our souls and we hear His still, small voice speaking words of life and salvation, "Father, forgive them for they know not what they do." This is what Phillips Brooks is trying to express in his beautiful Christmas Carol, "How silently, how silently, the wondrous gift is given. So, God imparts to human hearts the blessings of His heaven."
“The Lord is in His Holy Temple,
The Lord is in His Holy Temple.
Let all the earth keep silence before Him.”
My simple message is slow down, be quiet, and listen to the still, small voice of God.
Comments