Peace - Be still.

My heart looks back to the time when I was under a sense of sin, and sought with all my soul to find peace, but could not discover it, high or low, in any place beneath the sky; yet when "I saw one hanging on a tree," as the Substitute for sin, then my heart sat down under His shadow with great delight.  My heart reasoned thus with herself,--Did Jesus suffer in my stead? Then I shall not suffer. Did He bear my sin? Then I do not bear it. Did God accept His Son as my Substitute? Then He will never smite me. Was Jesus acceptable with God as my Sacrifice? Then what contents the Lord may well enough content me, and so I will go no farther, but: "sit down under His shadow," and enjoy a delightful rest.”  Till He Come, C.H. Spurgeon

As I read that I wanted to curl up in a ball and get as small as I could.  Oh to grow into such a state!  Oh to have my affections so informed by His love and sacrifice.  But self- pity is such a low thing – such a toxic thing. It will only consume – it will never heal or help.

Oh how I long to love Him as I see here – to know Him and have that strength in Him.  My first impulse is to run about “doing” for Him as though (1) He needed my help and (2) my works to win Him would ever work.  Such is the battle with what the Word tells us is the “flesh.”  It seeks desperately to solve the problem to fix whatever seems to need fixing. 

It also refuses to sit down and shut up.  I balk at the very idea of “not doing.”  I want the plan, laid out plain and clear so we might know and not need to trust.  And yet – trust is exactly what we need.  The flesh stacks up our smallness and weakness and unworthiness and then pushes it over crushing us – or at least seeming to.

Do you, with me, long to rest in Him?  To release your hold on it all – and to trust His grace?  Does His grace seem distant and dark?  Do you have the sense that you are being punished, that there is no place for you at the table?  Or perhaps you sit on the floor at the far end of the table thinking, “If He sees me, He will throw me out”? 

That is the flesh – my flesh, your flesh – the flesh.  Satan, when he can do nothing else, uses the providences of God to stimulate our flesh and bring us to be afraid of our Lord and friend, Jesus.  Oh, that like a tumor God would excise it from me and you.  Oh, that we would not flinch at the sight of the savior surgeon’s knife.

I have learned, from Him, that when one stays in a dark and dismal place and thinks they can survive there, one is resistant to all attempts at rescue.  Oh, how painful and joyful it is to even begin to sit still for our Savior’s attentions. 

I have learned that my doubt is truly idolatry for I look to my doubt and not that little grain of faith He has planted in me.  I know the darkness, I know the rejection and though it presses cruelly, I find I fight to let it go. 

Having put (and fighting doing it more) my faith in me and others and my ideas and schemes, I am cast down – but the voice of the flesh still bellows.  Oh, for the blessed silence of being in His arms, hearing the beat of His resurrected heart.  Oh, to feel the warmth of His embrace, to see the light of His radiance and be at rest under His hand.

I pray that He will overwhelm my resistance, my self - my flesh that fights His love and care -  that seeks to “show Him I am worthy,” of his blessing.   Oh, that He would quiet - silence that voice that so deceives enticingly.   Oh, that I could hear none but Him – that I would be silent and the world inaudible.