8 October 2013 - my soul in stillness waits

8 October 2013 - my soul in stillness waits

Let Israel wait for the LORD,
For with the LORD is kindness
and with him is plenteous redemption;

It is hard to be still when things are bad.  When things are a mess it is hard to wait patiently.  The worse things are the more we feel the need to do all we can to fix them right away.  Yet good solutions are rare amidst such agitation and distress.

If we are in the depths of despair we must cry, "LORD, hear my voice!"  We must set aside all of our normal concerns, still ourselves, and turn to God.

“Neither man nor beast, neither cattle nor sheep,
shall taste anything;
they shall not eat, nor shall they drink water. 
Man and beast shall be covered with sackcloth 
and call loudly to God;

We cannot stand on our own because of our iniquities.

If you, O Lord, mark iniquities, who can stand?

And this is true of all of us no matter how "OK" we believe ourselves to be.  Our purity always reveals tarnish in the light of God.  But we need not fear.  He does not want to mark our iniquities.  Jesus did not come to condemn the world (cf. Joh. 3:7).  As long as we don't try to stand on our own in spite of our sin we will know the forgiveness that is with him.

There is a rationale that underlies this necessity.

that you may be revered.

We need to be cured of the illusion of self-sufficiency.  Self-sufficiency is inimical to love.  Self-sufficiency closes us to receiving love and makes it difficulty to give love due to our pride.The LORD offers us his redemption in such a way that we cannot mistake it for our own power.  This is why, even though the works of Martha are important, what Mary choses is even better.  Martha faces the liabilities of effort.  She may easily believe that she earns the favor of Jesus by her hard work.  Jesus does appreciate the love Martha shows her.  But the stillness of Mary is even more important:

There is need of only one thing. 
Mary has chosen the better part
and it will not be taken from her.”

If we set aside the noise and haste of life, if we set aside our desire for lesser things, and if we just make room for the LORD with a modicum of stillness in our hearts:

And he will redeem Israel
from all their iniquities.