Tag: Quiet

Bible Verses about Times of Quiet

5 Comments

  • Exodus 14:14 ESV
    The Lord will fight for you, and you have only to be silent.”
  • Job 6:24 ESV
    “Teach me, and I will be silent;
        make me understand how I have gone astray.
  • Psalm 4:4 ESV
    Be angry, and do not sin;
        ponder in your own hearts on your beds, and be silent. Selah
  • Psalm 37:7 ESV
    Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him;
        fret not yourself over the one who prospers in his way,
        over the man who carries out evil devices!
  • Psalm 46:10 ESV
    “Be still, and know that I am God.
        I will be exalted among the nations,
        I will be exalted in the earth!”
  • Proverbs 11:12 ESV
    Whoever belittles his neighbor lacks sense,
        but a man of understanding remains silent.
  • Proverbs 17:28 ESV
    Even a fool who keeps silent is considered wise;
        when he closes his lips, he is deemed intelligent.
  • Proverbs 29:11 ESV
    A fool gives full vent to his spirit,
        but a wise man quietly holds it back.
  • Ecclesiastes 3:7 ESV
    a time to tear, and a time to sew;
    a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
  • Isaiah 26: 3 ESV
    You keep him in perfect peace
        whose mind is stayed on you,
        because he trusts in you.
  • Isaiah 30:15 ESV
    For thus said the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel,
    “In returning[ and rest you shall be saved;
        in quietness and in trust shall be your strength.”
    But you were unwilling,
  • Lamentations 3:26 ESV
    It is good that one should wait quietly
        for the salvation of the Lord.
  • Zephaniah 3:17 ESV
    The Lord your God is in your midst,
        a mighty one who will save;
    he will rejoice over you with gladness;
        he will quiet you by his love;
    he will exult over you with loud singing.
  • James 1:19 ESV
    Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger;
  • 1 Peter 3:3-4 ESV
    Do not let your adorning be external—the braiding of hair and the putting on of gold jewelry, or the clothing you wear— 4 but let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God’s sight is very precious.

What matters more than age

7 Comments

My son says he is “five-ish.”

He’s actually four and his birthday  is in October, so it’s not that his birthday is coming soon.

He’s simply feeling five, so  this is his new token answer.

“How old are you?”

“I’m five-ish.  I actually look five.  Actually.”

It’s because of a little playground encounter a few weeks ago  with two little boys who became his insta-best-playground  buddies.  They climbed all over the pirate ship together, took turns on the zip line, and then spun in the tire.

Finally, they exchanged names and ages.

That’s when my son realized these other guys were five and they were shorter than he was.  So, therefore, he must look five, or at least “five-ish.”

Maybe it’s the  fact that my baby is trying to age himself or the fact that my girls all finished off another  school year and are off to bigger, higher grade levels, like finishing up middle school of all things–maybe it’s me nearing 40 and feeling all the weight of what that means and how that  looks on me….

Whatever the reason, age is on my mind.

I’ve been thinking how age is inevitable.   Growing older just happens, even if we’d rather it didn’t.

Maturity, on the other hand, is not guaranteed.

In her book Unseen, Sara Hagerty says it this way

We’ll mature without effort into  wrinkles  and gray hair, but our hearts won’t mature deep  into God by default.

But what is this maturing, this  growing up  in Jesus?

It doesn’t come by default, so then it must take discipline.  Yes.  Spiritual disciplines.  Digging into  prayer and digging into His Word and serving and listening to the Lord and worshiping.   Yes and yes and yes and again.

It’s not all so  concrete and straightforward, though.  It  isn’t just about studying and reading and knowing what God’s  Word says.

There’s the discipline of repentance and humility.  It’s stumbling our way through living out faith.  It’s getting it  wrong, humbly confessing that and asking Jesus to  renew, revive, refresh and redeem.

There’s the discipline of weakness, maybe that’s the hardest for me.  When I  am feeling most  dependent on Jesus because I’m not strong enough or capable enough on my own,  I  have to lean.  Leaning can feel like so much brokenness and that’s hard, but it’s also sweet because that is exactly when I know Jesus more.

Failing, messing up, making mistakes, feeling frazzled and overwhelmed:  It’s all my weakness on display, but  I cannot pull away from the hard season, from the difficult or the wearying or the unknown or even what I just haven’t mastered yet.

Christianity isn’t about being perfect; it’s about being transformed.

Then there are the quiet seasons, when life seems to just roll  along day after day, seemingly stagnant, same-old, same-old.

Restless.  I can be so restless.

I want to see big results.  Big change.  Big impact.

Then I read the reminder in Isaiah of how to grow in the discipline of waiting:

but those who trust in the LORD will renew their strength; they will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not become weary, they will walk and not faint (Isaiah 40:31 CSB).

I love  this verse in all of the nuances in each translation.

“Those who TRUST in the Lord”  (CSB).

The NIV says “Those who HOPE” and the ESV says “those who WAIT.”

We trust Him.  We hope.  We wait.

The discipline of waiting tucks itself into seasons of quiet and of hiddenness and of not knowing.  It’s about lingering for direction and looking forward to  seeing God at work, but not seeing that work just yet.

When we trust and we hope in Jesus even in the discipline of waiting, we can soar and we can run,  but oh friend,  we can also walk.

Somehow that walking seems  like the greatest feat to me.  Soaring can be exhilarating, running shows great power,  endurance and strength.

But walking takes unique courage.  Walking takes persevering hope.   We’re not seeing leaps of progress, but  we will  not give up.  We aren’t quitting and setting up camp in a land of complacency or dormancy.

We’re being steady,  daily, consistent, steadfast, and faithful.

When the soaring is done and the running is finished and we’re feeling  bone-tired, still  we walk with the Lord today.   Then the next day, we get up and we walk with Him again, and we will not faint nor fail.

I remember that it takes discipline to repent humbly, to fail graciously,  and to wait patiently.   That means I can buck less against what feels uncomfortable or hard and instead embrace what God is doing in me right here and now.   I’m not just arbitrarily aging; I’m maturing in Christ.  Lord, be at work in me.

Stop and Watch and Wait

1 Comment

“Look!”

This is what I shout out in my minivan while my kids were a captive audience.

“Wow!  Look!  Look!  Look!”

I point out the front window at the massive rainbow stretched from one side of the road in a perfect arc all the way to the other side.

Its colors are deeply defined and easy to spot in the curious sky—deep gray, light mist, bright sunbeams shooting through dimples in the clouds.

The week had been long and busy and I had been weary as in weary-in-the-soul.

And then this, this glistening reminder, this flash of hope, this tangible presence of God-at-work. God created something beautiful THIS DAY.

All  the beauty isn’t in the past.  His glory is here and it’s now, not just been there, done that, and nevermore to come.

So, it’s not just the beauty of the sky, (though it was beautiful), it was the beauty of  God bursting through the gray and the overcast; this is what caught my attention.

My kids, however, weren’t so impressed.  Most  of them ignored me.  One child gave a halfhearted attempt at interest and asked, “Where?”

I’m not confident she even bothered to look.  I think she was just trying to  make me happy because she’s nice that way.

But I didn’t let this one go, not easily anyway.  I told them to LOOK.  Really LOOK.  I’ve seen rainbows before in my life, but this was astonishing and breathtaking and they were MISSING IT!

At this point, I was on a tiny country road with no other car in sight.  I slowed to just below the speed limit and urged my kids to please look at the sky.

It still didn’t matter.  They listened to their music.  They flipped another page in the book.  They didn’t see because they were busy,  busy with their  own noise and their own agenda.

A few minutes later, we pulled into the parking lot and stopped the van.  We unloaded lawn chairs and jackets and gathered with friends around a bonfire.

“Did you see?” others asked.  Many had missed  it, but some of us were in on this divine secret, this magnificent rainbow caught in the early evening sky.  We shared that moment of awe with each other.

This time, I was one of those who had seen.  But maybe other times, maybe lots of the time, maybe even most of the time, I miss seeing.

Maybe God has been painting rainbows in the sky and I’ve been too busy with my own noise and my own agenda to  notice.

What about you?

Frederick Buechner writes:

Listen for God, stop and watch and wait for  him. To love God means to pay attention, be mindful, be open to the possibility that God is with you in ways that, unless you have your eyes open, you may never glimpse.  He speaks words that, unless you have your ears open, you may never hear.  Draw near to him as best you can” (The Remarkable Ordinary).

Pay attention.  Be mindful.

Stop and watch and wait.

God said it this way to the prophet Habakkuk:

“Look among the nations, and see;
    wonder and be astounded.
For I am doing a work in your days
    that you would not believe if told.” (Habakkuk 1:5 ESV).

How often do we do this?

How often do we:

Look

See

Wonder

and Be Astounded?

Maybe today is the day to begin, to  renew our determination, not to look for signs or miracles, but to wait expectantly for God Himself with eyes wide and ears open.

Of course, my life is loud.  My son is no longer napping and he likes to talk to me.  A lot.  My older girls come home from school and they want to review their day and maybe fight with each other and practice the flute, the piano, the drums and ask for homework help.  Maybe they are doing all this at the same time.

I’ve been considering the discipline of silence, though, how choosing quiet whenever possible heightens my senses to God at work around me.

I try to keep my words few.  I walk in  quiet.  I drive in quiet.  I listen more with friends and try to talk, talk, talk less.

I can’t be silent all the time.  I can’t be quiet all the time.  But there are times when it’s possible and I step into those possibilities and choose the discipline of quiet and silence.

Somehow quieting the noise helps me not only hear God better, but see Him better, too, and hearing Him and seeing Him…well, that’s what we really want.

I’m sharing today over at Women Leading Women. Please join me!

2 Comments

 

Earlier this fall, I sent in a little submission to the website, Women Leading Women, where I shared a little from my heart.  

I  wrote about in-between times, about waiting seasons, and about being hidden away.

Sometimes I need to be reminded how seasons of dormancy, seasons of rest, seasons of being hidden away, aren’t always signs of death.  Often, they are the prelude to new life.

The things we struggle most to endure can often birth beautiful things, if we don’t rush them.

This morning, you can find that little post over on Women Leading Women. 

Would you bless me and take a moment to visit their website?

Click here to visit the post.

As a bonus, you can leave a comment on their site and be entered in a drawing to win Sara Hagerty’s new book:, Unseen: The Gift of Being Hidden in a World That Loves to Be Noticed.  Doesn’t it look beautiful?!

As always, thanks so much for joining me here!

Bible Verses about Times of Quiet

Leave a comment

  • Exodus 14:14 ESV
    The Lord will fight for you, and you have only to be silent.”
  • Job 6:24 ESV
    “Teach me, and I will be silent;
        make me understand how I have gone astray.
  • Psalm 4:4 ESV
    Be angry, and do not sin;
        ponder in your own hearts on your beds, and be silent. Selah
  • Psalm 37:7 ESV
    Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him;
        fret not yourself over the one who prospers in his way,
        over the man who carries out evil devices!
  • Psalm 46:10 ESV
    “Be still, and know that I am God.
        I will be exalted among the nations,
        I will be exalted in the earth!”
  • Proverbs 11:12 ESV
    Whoever belittles his neighbor lacks sense,
        but a man of understanding remains silent.
  • Proverbs 17:28 ESV
    Even a fool who keeps silent is considered wise;
        when he closes his lips, he is deemed intelligent.
  • Proverbs 29:11 ESV
    A fool gives full vent to his spirit,
        but a wise man quietly holds it back.
  • Ecclesiastes 3:7 ESV
    a time to tear, and a time to sew;
    a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
  • Isaiah 26: 3 ESV
    You keep him in perfect peace
        whose mind is stayed on you,
        because he trusts in you.
  • Isaiah 30:15 ESV
    For thus said the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel,
    “In returning[ and rest you shall be saved;
        in quietness and in trust shall be your strength.”
    But you were unwilling,
  • Lamentations 3:26 ESV
    It is good that one should wait quietly
        for the salvation of the Lord.
  • Zephaniah 3:17 ESV
    The Lord your God is in your midst,
        a mighty one who will save;
    he will rejoice over you with gladness;
        he will quiet you by his love;
    he will exult over you with loud singing.
  • James 1:19 ESV
    Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger;
  • 1 Peter 3:3-4 ESV
    Do not let your adorning be external—the braiding of hair and the putting on of gold jewelry, or the clothing you wear— 4 but let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God’s sight is very precious.

Cultivating a Quiet Heart

2 Comments

“I’ve kept my feet on the ground, I’ve cultivated a quiet heart. Like a baby content in its mother’s arms, my soul is a baby content”
Psalm 131:1-2 (MSG)

I work from home at my computer so that I can take care of my three young daughters.  Mostly, my work days go something like this:

  • Get everyone settled and sit down at the computer to work.
  • Help child put clothes on her doll.
  • Sit down to work.
  • Get a drink for another child.
  • Sit down to work.
  • Spell “Pocahontas” for older daughter who is systematically drawing every princess she’s ever heard of.
  • Sit down to work.
  • Change baby’s diaper.
  • Sit down to work.
  • Break up fight between older girls who each want to be the same princess.
  • Sit down to work.
  • Get snack for children who declare that they are indeed starving and will die if they don’t eat something now instead of waiting for dinner.
  • Sit down to work.
  • Get lemonade for the children who forgot that they were also thirsty and not just hungry when they asked for a snack.
  • Sit down to work.
  • Look for a particular book for a child who swears she’s looked everywhere, including the bookshelf, and it has just simply disappeared into thin air.  Find the book on the bookshelf.
  • Sit down to work.

You get the idea.

Yesterday, I was working away and getting up every 20 seconds (perhaps an exaggeration, but it FELT like every 20 seconds), when my oldest daughter stood at my feet, appearing like a child in need.  So, I looked at her and sighed and waited for the request.  One more thing someone needed from me.  One more expectation to fill.  One more bit of help to give.

And she gave me a hug, placed a kiss on my cheek, said, “I love you, Mom” and walked away.

My baby does this all day long.  She plays and asks me for things and then at least two or three times an hour, she walks over to me and just lays her head down on my arm and waits for me to stroke her head and kiss her.  Then, she runs off again to dump out all the blocks and pull every book off the bookshelf as she plays.

I love my children and I love that I can be at home to help them when they need it and to give and receive kisses and hugs when all they ask for is affection.   Some days, it’s draining because it’s a job that involves giving, giving, and giving some more.   I know they’re kids who just need help and that’s okay.  I would much prefer they ask me for help than find my house torn apart from their efforts to do things on their own.  Still, sometimes I think a few minutes of quiet, uninterrupted time sitting in one place sounds luxurious.

That hug and kiss from my daughter yesterday reminded me of my relationship with God.   So many days, I go to Him in need.  I ask Him for help, encouragement, intervention, provision, healing.  All day long, I pray for myself, my family and for others.  Thankfully, God is a far more patient parent than I am.  He never sighs with fatigue and frustration when I show up before His throne again with another request.

Yet, how precious are the moments when I come into God’s presence not asking for Him to help me with anything, but just pleased to have His company.

Psalm 131:1-2 says:  “I’ve kept my feet on the ground, I’ve cultivated a quiet heart. Like a baby content in its mother’s arms, my soul is a baby content” (MSG).  In the NIV, this description is of a “weaned child with its mother.”

The image here is of a baby content to be with her mother, not because she’s looking for food or the fulfillment of a need, but just because the mother’s very presence brings comfort.

It’s part of the maturing process in this Christian walk.  God weans us so that we don’t just look to Him for help, but we respond “to Him out of love . . . for God does not want us neurotically dependent on Him but willingly trustful in Him” (Eugene Peterson).  It’s not that God no longer cares for us or sees our need.  Instead, He’s asking us to trust His love for us so much that we can lay our burdens at His feet and leave them there, choosing to focus on God Himself rather than our troubling circumstances.  We see His love and not our empty bank account.  We look to His faithfulness and not our illness.  We focus on His might and not our broken relationships.

In his book, A Long Obedience in the Same Direction, Eugene Peterson goes on to write, “Choose to be with him; elect his presence; aspire to his ways; respond to his love.”

This reminds me of Psalm 42:1-2 “As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, my God.  My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.  When can I go and meet with God?” (NIV).  It’s a cry for communion and relationship rather than a desperate plea for help.  It’s a call to enjoy God’s presence, not for what He does for us, but for who He is.

“Father, I thank You that You are so patient with me, hearing each of my requests and responding to me with lovingkindness and compassion.  I’m sorry for not spending more time just enjoying Your presence instead of meeting with You in order to get something for myself.  I trust in You to care for me and all these needs that weigh on my heart and I put them aside in order to commune with You and give You praise.  I choose to cultivate a quiet and contented heart.”

*****************************************************************************************************

Heather King is a wife, mom, Bible Study teacher, writer for www.myfrienddebbie.com and worship leader.  Most importantly, she is a Christ follower with a desire to help others apply the Bible to everyday life with all its mess, noise, and busyness.  To read more devotionals by Heather King, click here.

Copyright © 2011 Heather King