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Apples of Gold
Radio Script for January 19, 2011
“How Can You Think Deeply With All That Noise?”
Hello, I’m
How do you know what you think if you don’t think?
How can you think if you don’t take time to think?
How can you think anything through if you are constantly interrupted?
How can you think deeply with all that noise?
How can your thoughts be organized and thorough if the TV is on all the time?
How can you string together one thought to the next if you are pouncing on every e-mail and text message that comes in?
We need time to connect the dots. We need a quiet place to rise above the fray and see the big picture.
What really matters? What are the majors and the minors? Am I doing the important or only the urgent?
These things require reflection, deeper thought; the kind of thinking that is best done in silence.
Have you ever read The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis? There’s a story of a man in a quiet library who begins thinking deeper thoughts about his life – and his thinking turns towards God. All of a sudden, a demon appears and spurs him to get out of there and into the noisy street. And the man says something like, “Ah, the bus passing, the newsboy shouting, this is normal. I don’t know what I was thinking back there in the library, but I’m glad to be back to real life.”
I think that happens all the time. People think real life is whatever they are used to. Their cell phone. Their iPod. Their daily routine. Their TV shows. Their favorite DVDs. They fill their lives with noise, and leave no quiet time for deeper reflection. The TV comes on first thing in the morning (if it wasn’t left on all night) and from that point forward their thinking is shaped by, if not dictated by, all the noise around them.
I think this keeps us from God. I think the noise puts up a wall that keeps our minds from turning to our Creator. We fill up on eye and ear candy and don’t have room for more substantial fare.
Christians fall into this trap, even with Christian things. Maybe it’s frantic church activity, go-go-go. Maybe it’s frantic learning, more Bible studies, more lessons, more sermons, Christian radio and TV and music. Sometimes I think God is drowned out by all of our Christian noise.
Then if we aren’t doing something we can feel guilty. When we are still, we might feel lazy. Gotta get up and go and do and change the world. If I don’t do it, who will? “If it is to be it is up to me,” and off we go.
Yesterday I was talking with Amy Hayes, the daughter of Bill and Gloria Gaither. Listen to this phrase of hers, “everlasting more.” She said, “We don’t need to be doing everlasting more.”
Have you ever felt that way, like you were driven to be doing everlasting more, as if you must just to be a good Christian?
Even Jesus Himself was not driven to be doing everlasting more. He said He came to finish the work that the Father gave Him to finish…and that was it.
In John
I like how it adds a double emphasis, “by Himself…alone.” And He stayed there the rest of the day.
What on earth was He doing up there? What did He do all the other times He was alone?
“Well He was praying, Doug, at least sometimes, the Bible says so.”
Yes, it does, but I doubt it was the frantic prayers we offer up so often. “Gotta hurry up and get these prayers in before my prayer time is up.”
Don Whitney talks about coming to God in a “wordy fret.” Can you relate to that, coming to God in a “wordy fret”?
I don’t think that’s what Jesus was doing.
Whitney has written a lot about the discipline of silence before God, and he shares a story by Jonathan Edwards about his future wife Sarah. Edwards wrote, “She loves to be alone, walking in the fields and groves, and seems to have someone invisible always conversing with her. She hardly cares for anything, except to meditate on Him.”
Doesn’t that sound serene? I picture Jesus doing the same, walking slowly and silently, spending time with the Father.
When we are quiet before the Lord, I think He starts to put things into perspective. He starts weaving things together and making sense of things.
In the silence, God speaks; our minds and souls can go deeper. We can start to wrap our head around things because we can think more clearly.
Ecclesiastes 3:7 says there is a time to be silent.
Psalm 4 talks about meditating in our heart and being still.
Habakkuk
Zephaniah 1:7 says, “Be silent before the Sovereign Lord…”
Zechariah
So think about this today. Think about turning everything off or getting away from all the noise. Then in the quiet, draw near to God and think deeply about the important things of life and eternity.
Comments?
E-mail me: dougapple@wave94.com.
May God bless you today! With Apples of Gold…I’m
© 2010 The Arrow’s Tip
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(Proverbs 25:11 – “A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in settings of silver.”)
Why “The Arrow’s Tip”? Each morning, after diligently seeking the Lord, I write Apples of Gold. Then before I release it to the public I pray one final prayer, “Lord, send forth your arrows.” I envision App
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