When words should be few...

Monday...the day for clarity and my friend who I call she asks if I have gotten any? The significance of that word didn't really hit me until later in the sanctuary. There in the quiet I read...

"Guard your steps as you go to the house of God and draw near to listen rather than to offer the sacrifice of fools; for they do not know they are doing evil. Do not be hasty in word or impulsive in thought to bring up a matter in the presence of God. For God is in heaven and you are on the earth; therefore let your words be few."--Ecc. 5

It is clear that I am to guard my steps...to listen rather than speak...to have few words about the matter.

This matter that has cropped up is divisive. Causing others to be tossed back and forth...leaving me feeling drained. And there are ones I deeply love on both sides of an issue that has left Jesus in the background.

Everything feels heavy around the office today...a weighted cloud settles around me and tears well. I close the door to shut out the sound of voices talking...distracting me from work. I flippantly turn on some music mainly to further drown out what is going on around my little space.

David Crowder has been waiting there to fill the air around me with a message. Won't you take a listen...

Let Me Feel You Shine

You can almost touch it...God's warmth floods the space around me. And God he shines...and I am put back on my feet. This is the place we must run to when His light becomes dim...hard to see. The dark is just an absence of light and we are called to "be the light of the world". So let's shine among those being tossed as if we are a light house on the shore. Not with words or theory or theology...nor scripture or opinions that can be used to tear and wound. No...let's keep our words few...and our light bright.

Until...

Little black words on the white screen read...what does until mean?  The text from my friend brings me back to this word again.  When I think about it I am amazed at the power in such a little word.

Webster's says until is a "function word".  It indicates "continuance" for a specific time period.  Yet God doesn't exist in time and his continuance has no beginning and no end.  

Yesterday, the day to get a clear picture of my heart, revealed that which I had been trying to ignore.  

Pride working its way back in...

My tongue getting in the way...

So this journey may continue a while with no specified time of completion.  This seems hard..."until" gives me something to strive for...an ending to a hard thing.  

Lately my friend and I we have been pushing ourselves during our exercise sessions.  We run for short periods of time or distances.  We stand at the top of the hill and decide to run to the next mailbox.  We start and I begin to get tired...legs burning...lungs heaving.  Just a few more steps...no stopping until....

When there is no finish line the race seems to go on forever.  And this work that Jesus does in us, it does go on forever.  And we must press on to win the race.

"Do you not know that in a race all runners run but only one gets the prize?  Run in such a way as to get the prize."--1 Cor. 9:24

    

Until...

There it is...in the quiet as I finish my study this morning...the call to return to this place.  There is struggle with the thought of returning to this discipline.  I think of all the difficulty in the spiritual discipline of fasting...the sacrifice...the obedience...the constancy of it.  My flesh doesn't want to go.  I have come up with a hundred excuses to put it off.

"How long Lord?"

If I have a set amount of time maybe then it will not seem so hard.

I hear the word "until" and I wonder "until what?"

This word it bounces around in my thoughts.  The more I whisper this word the greater the potential of it all becomes.

And so...I begin and will continue...until.