The start of an idea. The beginning of the end of silence. Here is where it started. The journey to Olympus, to change not a nation, nor a people, not even to change another person, but to change my own mind.
The Old King ruled the land,
Commanding with outstretched hands.
He knew but only his own glory,
As the Lord took to rewrite his story.
I started climbing this invisible mountain when I was born. Born into a family that had taught me good values, of sacrifice, of doing, of hard work.
But alas, the very thing I set out to do, I could not. To lose is to gain. To find what I was looking for, I had to stop. And think.
The capturing of a thought. Why does it seem to be of such importance, that our Lord would command it so? To capture a thought is to freeze the process of thinking itself: to stop, no less, a rushing river. No one tells a river where it shall flow nor does it ever really stop. It flows over obstacles and then erodes the stones and terrain it happens upon. The force and fury of it sometimes tragic, but alas the flood eventually diffuses within the constancy of time.
To pause. Like a musical consonance, a rest, a slowing down. Why? Because we forget, we bury ourselves in the sound, in the flow, in the downpour, and we pass by. We hurt, we suffer, the pain sometimes overwhelming until we pour time over it, we pour sugar on top, we escape to another path and flow into a different stream only to find ourselves once again in the same struggles.
Yet, within this pause. Within the refrain, is sweetness. Is wondrous rest. Is trust. Is surrender. Is obedience. It is the abiding that God requires of us. It is here. It is here that the Lord takes us to where we belong, and prepares us to where we need to go. Where true joy rings and where Love is lavished upon us.
“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” Matthew 11:28
From my own experience, usually the season of waiting is often the hardest, sometimes even torturous. My modus operandum is to do. To work. To succeed. To produce with these hands. Like one of the often quoted and probably clinically insane Charlie Sheen’s sentiment, “I only have one speed. I have one gear. Go”. I want to do. I want to go. I see ten steps ahead. I am Martha. You have built me for this (or so I thought).
Yet… you would have me rest. Lord, I am restless. Restless, until I rest in you.
Return to your rest, my soul,
for the Lord has been good to you. (Psalm 116:7)
The Mountain's King 