In The Quietness Of The Closet

The world is loud and the arguments are many, as I sit here in my quiet closet. 

Sometimes my life feels as if I’m being carried along by a white-capped wave in a stormy sea. Sometimes I hold my breath and go deep into the water, where it’s quiet and everything seems graceful and flows with effortless ease. I want to stay here in the deep, where I’m alone. Where it’s quiet and removed from the white-capped waves from above. But I can only hold my breath for so long. And then I must return to the surface, and continue to ride the wave in the storm. 

I want to understand what I’m being taught. I want to see it in a bullet-point list. I want to say, “Aha! Here is the thing I must comprehend!”, and then set about to comprehending it. “Comprehend this thing you are being taught…,” I want to tell myself. “Reach out and grasp this thing…,” my will says to my hands. But the white-capped waves and my inability to breathe underwater continually remind me of my utter helplessness. I am at the mercy of the one who both controls the storm and creates things to breathe underwater. 

The flesh rages against helplessness. Because the flesh wants bullet-point lists. The flesh wants to control the storm. The flesh wants to breathe underwater by sheer willpower. But the spirit is content to sit in the quiet closet, for however long it takes for the unknown lesson to be learned. 

Oh Lord, may my spirit win. 

(Matt 6:6) But when you pray, go into your inner room, shut your door, and pray to your Father, who is unseen. And your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.

(Ps 91:1,2) He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the LORD, He is my refuge and my fortress: my God; in him will I trust.

(Ps 27:4,5) One thing I have asked of the LORD; this is what I desire: to dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze on the beauty of the LORD and seek Him in His temple. For on the day of trouble He will conceal me in His tabernacle; He will hide me in the secret place of His tent; He will lift me up on a rock.

Press On

Lately I’ve been wondering if Jesus ever wanted to go back to the miracle in Cana. 

I often see things I’ve posted in the past pop up on Facebook, and I marvel that I ever wrote them. I wonder at the spiritual food present in those writings, where did such nourishment come from? Surely not my own heart. A heart full of rooms with creaky doors and dusty corners. A heart that looks back on things I’ve written in the past, longing to feel the tangible nearness of Christ I felt then, rather than the faith I’m being taught to have in His presence now. 

Sometimes I long to go back to those days in my barn. Those days of His palpable presence and the outpouring of His living water day after day. And I wonder if Jesus ever longed to go back to simpler days during times when the Father was teaching Him the grueling exercise of pressing on? Pressing on in the silence? Pressing on in the darkness? Pressing on when you feel nothing at all? Pressing on when you feel too much? Pressing on when you are tempted to look back on “once was,” instead of looking ahead for the “to be.”

Paul teaches that we must not dwell on the things that have passed behind us, but rather, we must press on…”straining toward what is ahead.” He says we must “press on toward the goal to win the prize of God’s heavenly calling in Christ Jesus.” And I believe that Paul teaches us this because he was well-acquainted with the temptation to look back with longing for simpler days and mountaintop moments. 

But he was also well-acquainted with the Spirit of Christ, Who continually calls to us, “Press on!”

(Phil 3:13,14) Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize of God’s heavenly calling in Christ Jesus.

(Heb 12:1,2) Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off every encumbrance and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with endurance the race set out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith…

(Heb 3:1) Therefore, holy brothers, who share in the heavenly calling, set your focus on Jesus, the apostle and high priest whom we confess.