Be Still and Know

DEVOTION

ISAIAH

BE STILL AND KNOW

Isa 6:9-13

9 He said, "Go and tell this people:

"'Be ever hearing, but never understanding; be ever seeing, but never perceiving.' 10 Make the heart of this people calloused; make their ears dull and close their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed."

11 Then I said, "For how long, O Lord?" And he answered:

"Until the cities lie ruined and without inhabitant, until the houses are left deserted and the fields ruined and ravaged, 12 until the LORD has sent everyone far away and the land is utterly forsaken. 13 And though a tenth remains in the land, it will again be laid waste. But as the terebinth and oak leave stumps when they are cut down, so the holy seed will be the stump in the land."

NIV

First we have to ponder on the idea of actually having a conversation with God. How did Isaiah hear what God was saying? Was it an audible voice, or just words heard inside his head? However, it is an awesome thing to converse with God. But then that is what prayer is supposed to be. It seem so often, even in church, prayer is offered, and we never wait to hear God’s answer. In our personal prayer time, do we wait to hear what God has to say, or do we just offer our lists of needs and get on with the day? Are we like what God told Isaiah to tell the people? Always hearing, but never understanding, ever seeing, but never perceiving? Hopefully our hearts are not calloused, but maybe it is in the sense we are not as sorrowful regarding those times we fail him. Have we just accepted the fact we commit sin and left it at that? No, we hate the fact we fail, we detest our weakness, our inability to resist certain temptations. Why can’t we be perfectly holy and righteous, pure and without sin? Maybe there are some believers that can be purer and holier than we are. We digress. The point here is that we have to make sure we are always ready to hear from the Lord, to spend time, listening, understanding what he is saying, perceiving his truth and direction for our life, seeing the path before us. If we become callous to our failures, what fate awaits us? Because we do not ascribe to the theology of Calvin, we believe it is possible to become so calloused of heart that we are no longer following God, and end up going astray. So we cannot allow that callous to form, we have to continue to have a   circumcised heart, exposing it all to God, allowing him to have full access to our inner being, and we need to be sensitive to his voice. No way can we allow our life to become a city of ruin, without inhabitant, especially the habitation of the Spirit. We cannot live in desertion, in a waste laid without God. What would life be, if it were not living it in the everlasting arms of our Lord? It would be a wasteland, a desert, without the spring of living water flowing through us and overflowing from us. Yes, we can live life with passion, with enthusiasm, with excitement and anticipation of what God is doing for us, in us and through us. Yet, we have to also remain silent, be still and know he is God.