Quieting – Isaiah 30:15-18

The passage begins with God making a powerful declaration over His chosen people;

              In repentance and rest you shall be saved, in quietness and trust is your strength.

But they rejected R&R and Q&T. Instead they elected flight and even though they used the swiftest horses the result was a chaotic affair where a paranoid mob of a thousand are being put to flight by the bluff of a single enemy. The outcome of Israel’s independence was being left alone and dangerously exposed.

We no longer ride horses into battle armed with swords and spears but the nature of warfare has not changed. When I hear God declare that our salvation will be worked out through repentance, rest, quietness and trust, I picture the intentional cultivation of a grace-saturated inner-life.

Do we really understand that our hearts are the battle field? Is it possible we too have turned down God’s terms of R&R and Q&T? We still have a diabolical enemy who would love to destroy us. As far as we know his chief weapon is deception. He is referred to as the prince of the power of the air. When I think of the war he is waging I picture this air where radio waves travel unseen through walls carrying their messages of advertising, news and entertainment. I see the prince of this age overseeing the bulk of these unseen transmissions crafted from carefully blended amounts of truth and lies. This content typically passes unchallenged through our hearts and minds. I picture a day though, when Satan’s lies have been filtered out. On that day I believe we will be astounded that this singular master lier has caused so much paranoia, and driven so many into chaos, bondage and misery. But our passage concludes with…..

Therefore the Lord longs to be gracious to you, and therefore He waits on high to have compassion on you. For the Lord is a God of justice; How blessed are all those who long for Him.

To compose our hearts for a war with the father of all lies we must remind ourselves that light obliterates darkness. Ours is the Father of Lights and we are children of light. Our spirits were created for Truth and Light. The Blue Book is an excellent tool which has helped many in personally developing the best practices of watching over our hearts. The Blue Book has been a faithful servant to repentance,rest quietness and trust.

Father, may it not be said of us that we rejected your means of working out our salvation. May we establish our secret places of retreat and prayer. May we become adept in discerning spiritual reality, in distinguishing religion from relationship, in separating truth from error. Help us to cultivate longing where there is complacency. We long to see Your justice exercised against Your enemy and ours. Amen.

 

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