Saturday. He leaves for his man breakfast, and a solitude of stillness settles here.

Treasures these are, such Saturday morns, and I stretch them long as they will reach, through coffee steam clouds casting filmy shadows over pages of print or blank whiteness. The morning bird sings today’s brief song selection outside the window, then fades off, and I am left with gentle thoughts and deep.

Usually.

But today the coming week keeps calling, like rude salesman, competing with the now of silence, reminding me this very room in which I wish to sit all wistful must be partially dismembered and fully rearranged, brief (three-day) home for two adults, one little child.

And beyond it wait the other rooms, one the kitchen, wanting mixing and preparing done ahead, preventing robbery of family time so rare.

Do still, or do busy?

Or, do both? Brother Lawrence could: stilled himself in a sort of solitude with God even while busied in the kitchen, pelted with calls for this and that from multiple mouths around him. Tersteegan could, even amid the crowds jostling in streets or jamming through his doors.

I’m no good at this. But is it about me? Isn’t my Lord, God, and Helper the One who stills the churning waves, who speaks peace among the milling multitudes?

Can I not, by His own power, do one and then the other? Still, then move—one small steady silent movement toward some meager task’s completion?  And always, when the agitation starts to rise inside the head and chest, and arms and neck tense up, can I not slow and stop and still, be each stilling but five minute byte? And then, eventually, may I not do both at once, still within, employed without?

Times like this I am most tempted to assess a day a wasted twenty-four if I’ve not checked off items on a list: accomplished, check, accomplished, check. But I remember Tozer telling how the godly men of old called wasted any day that hadn’t held some time of stilling alone with Him.

I have the alone this morning. The stilling comes from making practice of it and looking to its Author.

Stilling in gentle doing.

Doing gently stilled.

*****

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It stands out from the psalm I’m reading, a word—nearly leaps, like print within thick circle of glass.

God gives me a magnifying glass: my mind. I hold it over things, move it close and far to focus, and what’s beneath it grows…

What I dwell on does get magnified.

I use that principle. If I cannot get clear sense of a thing, I’ll manipulate that lens to see reality, magnify to focus.

That’s good.

And that’s bad!

Lately I’ve glimpsed things too large for me. Magnifying portions of them small enough to fit within the confines of my meager equipment has smacked the eyes of my heart with a overblown view of terrible trivia. What’s stands out, clear, is the abysmal state of things past or present, and maybe even future.

Truly, truth can set you free, and what you don’t know can hurt you, usually much more than if you’re intelligently informed. Forewarned is forearmed.

But too much of a bad thing is a really bad thing.

Philippians 4:8 instructs me to dwell on what’s true, but also what’s noble, just, pure, lovely, good-newsy, virtuous, and praiseworthy—and I think the “true” it’s talking about is more than factually so, that it’s big-T True.

I only know one thing for certain that fits all those adjectives, without glitch.

I can gaze on blue sky and after while see tornadoes materialize. Scrutinizing a luscious apple I might soon behold a ghastly worm. I can ponder what I thought was thorough  truth only to get some rough revelation of lies  jolting me to rude and sad awakening.

But there’s one thing not like that…

That one thing was Paul’s one thing (Phl 3:13-14).

That one thing was Mary-sister-of-Martha’s one thing, her “good part” (Lk 10:42). And it was another Mary’s thing to focus on, big.

“My soul doth magnify the Lord,” she said (Lk 1:46-47 KJV). As Hannah magnified Him (1Sa 2:1-3,6-10). As I also do this morning when verses focused on His beauty and strength and power and glory and wisdom and majesty and due honor come before me on scripture pages or in thoughts of my heart or song from my lips.

It’s good to see our precarious state, and what huge obstacles challenge us. It’s good to see we are “poor and needy.”

Then how excellent it is to see His power to meet those needs in all the benevolence He’s poured out and keeps on pouring—to think on these things, and then to thank Him! For thanksgiving to God magnifies Him, too (Psalm 69:30 KJV).

O magnify the LORD with me. Let us give praise to His holy name! 

 *****

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Here I am, getting ready to drive out for the day. I mean busy-highway drive, following printed directions to find someone’s house, the whole bit!

If you read here regularly you know I thought I’d never do this again, because of deteriorating eyesight, but if you’ve stopped by here lately you also know something weird and wonderful has happened to my eyes.

I’m seeing better now than I have for years. How this happened is a mystery! (But God works mysteries, now, doesn’t He?)

So, I’m drawn this morning to Isaiah. I’ve been reading and meditating lately in the sixth chapter of this wonderful book that I think could be called “Behold Your God!” And right now the 42nd chapter also speaks personal meaning for me. So, here today are reasons I see in those two beloved chapters,

REASONS TO PRAISE HIM

FROM ISAIAH 6

• 521 – Because even the mighty seraphim cry to one another, “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD God of Hosts.”
• 522 – Because they declare, “The whole earth is full of His glory!”
• 523 – Because even such a man as Isaiah the prophet, when come “face to face” with Him, could only cry, “Woe is me, for I am undone!” seeing so starkly the uncleanness of his lips, and the lips of his people.
• 524 – Because seeing “the King, the LORD of hosts” is so utterly leveling.
• 525 – Because He, the LORD, touches lips, taking away iniquity and purging away sin.
• 526 – Because God calls those He would send
• 527 – Because He gives words to say, even though few people will receive them
• 528 – Because when He removed His people far away from His land, He kept a portion of them, as a stump — and “the holy seed its stump.”

Who’s the toughest flower on this rustic northern property, the last flower standing?

Some late season down-to-earth Daisy type?

Some wild weed with wiry stem and iron willed roots?

A leftover mum?

Maybe a geranium?

Nope. None of the above.

~

There she stands, where she’s held firm since early spring, when, nurtured in mere builder’s sand beneath paving, she elbowed her way up through a crack between patio stones.

Barely noticed through summer’s show, hidden in shadows and watered mostly by fickle rain, she survived, even thrived through heat and chill and soggy and parched and everything in between.

Killer frost hit weeks ago. Snowflakes have already feathered down. Summer storms and late hurricane winds buffeted yard and garden.

Mighty trees fell, but she remains!

Member of the Shrinking Violets Club. “Accident” of last year’s seed scatter (who knows how?) Grand champion, longest running bloom-and-re-bloom. She has much to teach us, Miss Pansy.

Let us listen to the lesson of her little life:

Ten Tips from a Powerful Posy:

1- You are not an accident. God knew all about you long before you sprouted. Don’t forget this. You were made for glory in your corner.

2- If you’re painfully aware of your frailty and smallness, good! The Maker’s “power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Cor 12:9-10).

3- Be the best that you can be, but don’t seek the brightest spotlight. It isn’t healthy. Just settle into wherever God wants you and be how He made you, and He will sustain and prosper you.

4- Appreciate your environment. It might look rocky and depleted, but it’s what’s beneath the surface that counts.

5- When the heat of the day or the fury of hurricane winds beat hard on life, hide in His shadow “till these calamities pass by.”

6- Anchor to the Rock that’s way stronger than you. Sink your roots around Him. Cling close.

7- Let what’s poured from above nourish you. Good flower-soul food from a watering can bloomed me lush, and keeps me going now. Your soul needs regular feeding, too.

8- Leave seeds of your life to benefit others when you’re finally gone.

9- Praise the Maker from Whom all blessings flow.

10- And exude thanks, like I do.

-Pansy

(Human voice speaking now…) Thanking Him this morning…

~for planting me in my own little corner of the world.

~for being the power in my weakness.

~for sustaining and prospering me right where I am.

~for the places in my life that looked so rocky and bare, but that hid great treasure.

~for being my shelter in a time of storm.

~for being the rock to which I can anchor, through all the storms of life.

~for the nourishment of His word and His Spirit.

~for giving my heart thankfulness.

 *****

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Prompt word, QUIET.

GO:

See her there, in the back row, corner? If I didn’t point her out, you might not notice, with all the attention-drawing gestures. Almost all the others are making goofy faces, loud motions, mouths comic or wide. Hers carries simply a sweet serene smile.

I gravitate toward those who gravitate toward quiet.

Folly, in Proverbs, is “loud and clamorous,” and can’t hear wisdom or God for her own clamor, but the soul that waits on Him in personal quieting hears, and has, and that which (s)he has draws me.

May I too be the serene, the silent in the cacophony, that I might hear above it the still small voice of God not discerned in the whirlwind or the earthquake or the mighty roaring fire, but in the quiet.

STOP.

*****

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