74 - "Caleb Had A Quiet Heart" Numbers 12-14; Mark 14:27-53

Numbers 13:30 - Caleb quieted the people because Caleb had a quiet heart.  Oh to live amidst the noise in quietness and confidence.  Isaiah 30:15

The people complained in their wilderness.  Do I allow my circumstances to reveal what I am really saying about what God has done or not done? 

"Return, O LORD, to the ten thousand thousands."  Return, O LORD, to us, ten thousand thousands across this spacious land of ours who call upon Your Name today.  May we press in hard and humble to find You in our million midst. 

O God, help us today to trust not like a Hobab but like a Humble Traveler in this story of ours.  The brother of Moses' wife planted his feet firm like a toddler spouting:  "I will not go.  I will depart to my own land to to my kindred."  Moses pleads with him:  "Come with us, and we will do good to you, for the LORD has promised good..." And they moved on in Numbers 12.

Sometimes, we'll invite people into our lives and they just won't come with us.  Even family.  I think the problem lies with me when, actually, the problem is their own heart.  Their problem is not me, it's God.  I'm just an agent at the ticket station.  May we let God use us as He will and not play the Holy Spirit in people's lives. 

I need to find my own Rest this day.  "Rest with us, God.  Stay with us." 

"For without You, what am I to myself but the Leader of my own destruction?" Augustine

Return, O God, to us all. As I read Mark 14, I may need to return to God. It's the distance

In Mark 14:72, there are two words I have never seen before:  Peter swore.  It's not something we are proud of when we breathe those hackneyed humphs.  My default mechanisms swore all-the-time when I was really young and didn't know the LORD.  But---this---this Peter is a follower of the Christ.  Wonder why Peter distances himself so much from the One he has been so attached to, every-single-day, for one thousand+ days, seeing with his own eyes one miracle-after-another. Watching Tabitha healed back to her mother's arms, witnessing demons cast out-of-control into a herd of pigs, seeing a blind man see for the very first time, hearing the scream of the Widow of Nain whose son rises from the dead,and on and on and on ... .  Unparalleled.  Unprecedented. Unbelievable. Yet, Peter swears to prove his piddly point.  And, really, what point am I trying to prove this day?  That I'm right?

And what happens as the rooster crows---Peter remembers.  Remembers what?  The words of his very own Christ---you will deny me and leave me.  It was Peter who pulled away, just like me and you.  God is always waiting wide-armed open.  We are all holy Sabbath breakers picking up sticks (Numbers 15:32).  A high-handed act in the middle of community---do I do the same things?  Playing it safe, distancing ourselves from life because the pain is too overwhelming.  

     "Recipe theology, that collection of practical biblical principles that tell us what to do in every situation, treats confusion as something to be solved rather than entered. It reduces the mysteries of life to things we can manage."                The Silence of Adam p. 66

PHOTO:  My good friend, the art teacher, painted this picture in 15 minutes in Chapel.  She actually painted it vertically then turned it horizontally when she was finished.  So poignant.  Jesus paid a price for us to truly live.  I must learn to live.  Live that quiet life apart from the noise.