A Gentle and Quiet Spirit

 

These qualities of character that God values in women–gentle and quiet spirits—do not always come naturally. (1 Peter 3:4)  They certainly don’t come naturally for me.  I aspire to those virtues, yet in a crunch, my nature is more prone to anxiety, rashness, and hysteria.

It seems I must have passed these traits along to my oldest daughter (sorry, Meredith). But she’s a wise and spiritual woman and reaches out for the lessons God has for her in trials, so she’s been able to bless me with things she learns. A few years ago, during an emotionally chaotic period in her life, we were talking on the phone daily. She was grasping for any spiritual anchor to stabilize her and offer her inner peace, direction and hope. She couldn’t sense God’s presence and intervention, and it sent her into a panic. I wanted desperately to be a comfort to her, but it was her own insight that brought comfort to us both. 

She called me one day to say, “Mom, you know how moms always tell their children: ‘If we’re in a crowd and we get separated, just stand still and I will find you?’ I realized that is what God is trying to say to me. I’m frantically spinning around trying to find God’s hand to cling to and it’s my very rushing that is keeping me from Him. I just need to be still and he will find me.”

Easier said than done, and yet it is what God tells us to do. I think we long for God to solve all our problems so we can find peace, but he wants us to be still in the midst of the problem. He doesn’t promise to make it easy for us to be still and quiet, he just tells us to be. Remember how Moses reassured a panicked Israel, “The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still.” (Exodus 14:14) God was expecting them to calm down even before they knew how he would resolve the problem of the pursuit of Pharoah’s army. He’d given them some evidence of his faithfulness to draw on for this kind of trust—the ten plagues had just rendered their enemy almost impotent. Still, the urgency of the immediate danger loomed large. In similar circumstances, God recommends the same quietness for us.      

Be still and know that I am God. (Psalm 46:10)

Be still before the Lord, all mankind, because he has roused himself from his holy dwelling. (Zechariah 2:13)

 David must have understood that he had a role to play in quieting down because he says in Psalm 131:2-3

 

                        But I have stilled and quieted my soul;

                        like a weaned child with its mother,

                        like a weaned child is my soul within me.

                        O, Israel, put your hope in the Lord

                        both now and forevermore.

 

We get a clue here about how to quiet our souls. It has to do with putting our hope in God. His power and his love are ample evidence that he is worthy of such hope. Still, God is fully willing to help in the process, and he doesn’t just sit back waiting for us to pull it together, but it may not be on our time schedule. Consider the combined message of the following passages:

 

                        The Lord your God is with you,

                        He is mighty to save.

                        He will take great delight in you,

                        He will quiet you with his love,

                        He will rejoice over you with singing. (Psalm 37:7)

 

                        Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him…. (Zephaniah 2:7)

 

Recently, when I was waiting for word on cancer surgery, my friend Angela Johnson understood my need to be still, and my temptation not to be, and she reached out to encourage me with this poem she had written:

 

                        I stand as still as I can to let the world whirl about me.

                        The leaves outside my window submit to the slightest nudge from the wind,

                        And no harm befalls them.

                        It is as if the leaves know more than I.

                        They understand their place, their purpose.

                        One tiny leaf equals the sum of the whole,

                        And all goes well.

                        Adorned with beauty, grace, a full life—

                        This tiny leaf.

                        And life it gives–

                        This charming leaf.

                        Then I move once again, at will.

 

For myself, I want every life circumstance to be overwhelmed by the love of God and the hope I have in him. I want to be as surrendered to his will as any inert part of his creation. I have a ways to go, but I know what I’m aiming for.

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