Silencing Your Soul

There is a unanimous opinion that rest is essential for healing. We have all been taught how to rest physically but few of us have learned to rest our souls. Today I was reading Streams In The Desert by L.B. Cowman and this is what he says about it. "God's voice demands the silence of our souls. My soul, have you pondered these words: "Be still, and know" (Psalm 46:10)? In the hour of distress, you cannot hear the answer to your prayers. How often has the answer seemed to come much later! The heart heard no reply during the moment of its crying, its thunder, its earthquake, and it fire. But once the crying stopped, once the stillness came, once your hand refrained from knocking on the iron gate, and once concern for other lives broke through the tragedy of your own life, the long awaited reply appeared. You must rest, O soul, to receive your hearts desire. Slow the beating of your heart over concerns for your personal care. Place the storms of your individual troubles on God's altar of everyday trials, and the same night, the Lord will appear to you. His rainbow will extend across the subsiding flood, and in your stillness you will hear the everlasting music."

Changing my eating habits and learning to love carrot juice has been easy compared to learning how to rest my body and soul. I am daily challenged to slow the beating of my heart over concerns for my personal care. This isn't a skill that I have been taught. It is one that pain teaches you. As a teacher I wonder how many life long lessons students are never learning in the classroom. Silence and stillness are not disciplines applauded in our society. We all know how to hurry but how many of us truly know how to rest?

Are you resting your body? Are you guarding your sleep? Do you take time out to have fun with the people you love? Are you quieting your soul in His presence each day? Are you turning off your mind in order to hear His voice? Please pray that I will let God teach me how to truly rest because I know it is the key to receiving my hearts desire.

I will leave you with this poem taken from the German of V. Schoffel

Tread in solitude your pathway,
Quiet hearts and undismayed.
You will know things strange, mysterious,
Which to you no voice has said.

While the crowd of petty hustlers
Grasps at vain and meager things,
You will see a great world rising
Where soft sacred music rings.

Leave the dusty road to others,
Spotless keep your soul and bright,
As the radiant ocean's surface
When the sun is taking flight.