Hush Now. (Sunday Thoughts Link Up #55)
MARK 6: 30-32
30 The apostles gathered around Jesus and reported to him all they had done and taught. 31 Then, because so many people were coming and going that they did not even have a chance to eat, he said to them, “Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest.”
32 So they went away by themselves in a boat to a solitary place.
MARK 1:35
“Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed.”
LUKE 5:15-16
15 Yet the news about him spread all the more, so that crowds of people came to hear him and to be healed of their sicknesses. 16 But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed.
It’s about to get loud.
Any minute now, 2018 will coming running through that door with self-betterment plans and bucket lists and spring clothing lines and a new television line-up and bookings for summer vacations and everyone, even the most well-intentioned, will forget the quiet lighting of the Advent candles and the hushed reading of Twas the Night Before Christmas and the solemnity and joy of the nativity.
It happens every year.
The noise comes rushing in and drowns the peace in its cacophony. Even the commercials (for diets and cleaning products and cars) are louder. We are a people on the move, and if not in body than in mind and attention span. We skitter around Facebook and texts and tweets because this is how the world is now.
And some of this connecting and energy is good. God wants us to be forces moving across the board. We are meant for action…as long as we are traveling in the right direction.
And yet, even Jesus needed a time out. Several in fact if you look back of Mark and Luke. This was his busiest time. Word was spreading of the miracles and the peaceful revolution was on a roll. He got groupies and went viral. Which is why we see Him retreat more and more to mountainsides and still lakes and walks alone in solitary places. He would have loved the hush of newly fallen snow.
I come back to myself around the third week in January.
Everyone complains about the lull between the holidays and springtime, but I like it. I like the diminished speed and daily routines. But until then, I have to fight for that quiet. I won’t look at the magazines in the racks at the checkout line because whatever is on the cover does not speak to that quiet. I turn off the music in the car. I mute commercials on tv. I turn the alerts off my phone (likes and comments and emails are noise too).
So here’s my prayer for all of us come January 1: May we push past the noise and burrow into the silences where God speaks most clearly. And then may we make some noise that matters.
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A big thank you from Jamie on The Mom Gene!
