In my reading from My Utmost for His Highest this morning I read: “Jesus cannot teach us anything until we quiet all our intellectual questions and get alone with him.” Also, as Chambers was talking about Isaiah answering God’s call, he said, “[God] did not force His will on Isaiah. Isaiah was in the presence of God, and he overheard the call.” Both of these statements make me realize how vital quiet time alone with You is, oh Lord. The only way I will even know what You are calling me to do it by spending time with You. Why it that SO hard to do? Yes, I can do it well enough to check off the block that says, “Quiet time,” enough to say that I spent time in the Word and prayer, but I KNOW that it not enough. You are calling me to times of communion with You. That means I must stop long enough to listen. You want to be so much more than a check on my agenda for the day; You want to be the center of my day! Teach me Lord, to quiet my soul before You, like the weaned child mentioned in Psalm 131. I think about that psalm, and remember how frantic my babies used to get when they were hungry. That’s the way I feel as I sit before You—scattered and frantic. It is so hard to quiet my soul, yet I want it to be my habit. I want to walk in the peace You give, and not in the tyranny of the urgent. I know it is possible, because You somehow manage to reach down and work in my life in spite of me—even as I managed to feed my frantic babies all those years ago. I do remember telling them if the would just calm down, things would be so much easier. And now, I suppose You are telling me the same thing. Yes Lord, I will “calm and quiet myself like a weaned child with its mother; like a weaned child I [will be] content.” Nothing is too difficult for You, and You desire the same thing I desire, so I will ask, seek, and knock, because You promise to answer. Meet me here as I surrender my all to You this day.

 Dear child, you do well to realize where to begin. It is an act of your will to quiet yourself before Me. I stand willing and ready to meet you as you do. I long for you to know the incomparably great power available to you. It is the same power that was exerted when Christ was raised from the dead (Ep. 1:19-29). My children never have to struggle in weakness, because I stand ready to fill them with that power. That is why my strength is made perfect in weakness (2 Cor. 12:9). In fact, if you were strong, your strength would stand in conflict to mine, and I could not work effectively. Your strength has to be found in surrender, and your peace found in stillness before me. Rest in my arms, and let me hold you. Bask in the warmth of my love, and let go the cares of this world. They are all fleeting, but I remain. Your job is to remain in Me. You are loved, and when you remain in my love nothing will be able to shake you. Taste and see that the Lord is good. Take time to enjoy my goodness. Those who seek Me will lack no good thing (Ps. 34), and never need be frantic. Rest my child. Rest. 

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Holding Nothing Back
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Holding Nothing Back

ByGordon Coleman

In counseling it’s not uncommon to find people who are upset with God. They are angry that he is allowing them to suffer unjustly, or that he didn’t stop the latest affliction in their lives. Many have faced one horrible experience after another to the point I become heartbroken, and find myself joining them in asking God why he allowed so much misery. Yet, we often forget that our God did not merely leave us here to suffer alone. He came and entered into our suffering to the fullest extent possible. Sometimes knowing that is all we need to know, because there is great comfort in the “fellowship of his suffering” (Phil. 3:10).