The Sylvr Pen

-Ignatius of Antioch 

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Jesus wasn’t jabbery, as our culture at present is very jabbery. He never promoted abundance of words but expression of important truth, and that expression may ring out more clearly in living than in talking.

Many times He gave no answer to questions put to Him. In silence before the accusers of the woman caught in adultery, he bent low and wrote in the dust, speaking nothing till at last His short bone-and-marrow-dividing sentence (John 8:3-8). He refused to get himself entangled in petty legal debates (Lk 12:13-14). Even Before Pilate “He opened not His mouth,” (Mt 27:13-14; Is 53:7; Acts 8:32). Often he gave similar non-response. And often He withdrew to the silence of the deserted place, to be alone with the Father (Lk 5:16).

May I silence my own jabber, and realize I need not give the answer to every question, enter into every debate, always speak up and out. As I read the Gospels, and the mini gospels in the Epistles, may I be aware of His silence and listen to it, and learn from it, and live it.

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Morning surprises. I pull back the window curtains, to face the day. What I face is a sky still stuck on night out there. A chill wedge of white moon hangs in the black. Frost hills and valleys decorate the window pane—on the inside.  I push down the sash to scent the air frost—but quickly push it up again. Yet before I turn from the window, I stand just a little bit longer, stand and look out at January, at horizon and sky, expecting nothing extraordinary.

Then suddenly it flashes past like a jet-propelled twinkle. A shooting star! A big and bright one, but with arcing so brief that an hour later I almost doubt it was what it was.

God moments are like that sometimes. A bright flash here and then dissolved into the black,  stealing your breath as much as chill air, yet leaving you feeling a little later that maybe you just imagined it.

That’s why I’m writing down God moments as soon as I can get to my journal or computer or mini-notebook these days, recording it just as it is before I doubt it even was, even though I still might doubt that it was what it was.

I need to in this cold dark winter of time and globe and soul. Elizabeth at Just Following Jesus in My Real Life says, “Winter never lasts forever.” But sometimes it seems like it will. It feels stuck, and so do I, like a frozen slug on some metaphoric ice jam, though time itself keeps tick-ticking by. 

“Watch for the God moments, the fact of His presence,” I instruct myself. “Keep AWARE! And note them down as soon as they flash by. Or by evening and the coming deeper dark, you will have forgotten.”

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What God moments have flashed past you this week?

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They came looking for their ancestors.

They didn’t find them here.

Instead they ended up leaving gifts: their fascinating conversation in our living room, the adventures of their search… and a copy of the diary.

They promised it that day, and sent it soon after, with accompanying photos of characters within. What a treasure trove of 19^th century life! One young woman’s daily duties and experiences, joys and hand-wringing angsts and sorrows.

What drama unfolded as I read!  So much, in fact, that the ancestor-seeker questioned sharing on a genealogy site.  It held family secrets, ugly and hard.

I read accounts of rugged daily life…

of teaching alone in a one-room school way out in nowhere—at surprising seasons of the year, of unruly pupils—and one scary parent!…

of tragedy, and villainous in-laws, and continual toilsome duties within her own parents’ household (evidently a stage coach stop on a road well-traveled for the time),

of having to keep going, working, working, even when so miserably sick (with what proved serious dental abscess, long undetected—which the dentist struggled to locate, thus pulling tooth after tooth mistakenly, quite altering her beautiful face).

But a light ray beamed through all the sad and broken and weary and worn. A weekly joy. Her words echo and re-echo for me. When Sunday arrived, her diary sighed huge:

“Oh, the blessed Sabbath!”

I could feel her relief and release.

There she found rest, and restoration, and Christian companionship in worship, the times they could make the trip to church, and lovely hours of quiet, unhurried and unburdened.

“Oh, the blessed Sabbath!”

May we savor it ourselves.

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I turn the lock to open, push down the upper pane to chin-rest height, and lean thereon, chin and hands, to breathe the sparkling air for a moment. And another moment… And still one moment more.

I realize I’m smiling.

Some things just make me do that. Spontaneously….

… bracing air refreshing my breathing after I’ve been cooped too long…

… fresh snow falling light around my face. (The little girl in me still smiles at this even when the sight begins to weary others.)

… rushing sound across the road, of stone-licking creek-water, swollen by thaw of snow and rain and sleet and slush. (I lean out to hear it better.)

… buzzy song of “chickadee-dee-dee” hopping in the evergreen, or hanging upside down on the suet cage

… tracks making patterns in the white.

… and bountiful showers of the fluffy stuff, like a couple days ago, coming down so full and heavy someone startles with, “Look out the window!” And you do, and think you’re living in a snow globe…

Simple pleasures, winter wonders, all.

Thanks to the Maker of all good things.

And thanks for the awareness of the slow smile they bring, for this is the kind that often goes unnoticed by the smiler.

…

What simple pleasures make you smile—when maybe you’re not even aware?

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It’s never old. It’s never dead. It’s always full of wellsprings and springboards, of thoughts and questions and answers and wonders… and reasons to praise His name… and names to praise, as well.

I open again to Genesis, and read the Creation account again, and think once more how numberless are the reasons to praise Him in the things He’s created. Every plant, animal, element of nature… every stunning wonder of outer (and inner) space is in itself a reason, making the count burgeon far, far beyond 10,000 Reasons, each reason firmly rooted in scripture.

But my heart rises high beyond the Creation… “up the sunbeam,” to the sun, up from the created to the Creator, our Maker, and my mind turns the latch, the idea of  Him as Creator, which opens the door to another huge room of reasons in itself.

Then into my thought flow come other names He bears, another part of scripture lately read:

Wonderful, Counselor,

Mighty God,

Everlasting Father,

Prince of Peace,

(All the above in Isaiah 9:6. Ponder each and catch your breath!)

Redeemer

(a name Isaiah abounds with: Isaiah 41:14;43:14;44:6,24;47:4;48:17; 49:7. Hover your cursor over each, and savor what else it says about Him. These verses are loaded with other names He bears:)

The Holy One

King of Israel

The First

The Last

The LORD of Hosts

The LORD Your God

(Can’t you just lose yourself in the depths of praise reasons each name contains?)

Then in my later reading further in Genesis, other names emerge:

The God-Who-Sees (Gn 16: 13-14)

The God-Who-Provides/Will-Provide (Gn 22:13-14)

and moving beyond this first book into Exodus I come soon upon that mighty

JHWH/YHWH, the great self-existent I AM

There’s much more here, in these two books alone, in the names He bears, in the actions that attest them, in the glories that radiate outward from them. And there’s so much more in the rest of scripture about each of those names and its outworking, its glory… I could take them one at a time and fill a blog page in no time. (Perhaps in the future I will…)

But this, right here, is plenty to chew on all through the next week, or two, or three!

“Let my mouth be filled with Your praise, and with Your glory, all the day.” –Psalm 71:8

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10,000 Reasons