When Elijah heard [the gentle whisper] he pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave. (1 Kings 19:13)

Toward the end of his prophetic mission, Elijah was under great pressure and took refuge in a cave near Mount Horeb. There he awaited the presence of God. A mighty windstorm hit the mountain, but the Lord was not in the wind, nor was he in the earthquake or the fire that followed. Then Elijah heard a gentle whisper, a still small voice that he knew in his heart was the voice of God.

 

In our noisy society, silence is a foreign thing. It causes some to feel bored, uncomfortable, or anxious. Many consider time spent alone to be empty and hollow, a waste of valuable time. But to be at one with God requires time spent in prayerful stillness. Without silence, we risk losing our awareness of God’s presence when the crosswinds hit, as well as in times of hope, relief, or joy.

Silence is rest for the mind. It is to the spirit what sleep is to the body. Like Elijah’s cave, silence is a refuge where the Divine Voice comes as a gentle whisper — a still, small voice heard as a consciousness of heart.

Jesus said, "...seek and you will find.." (Matthew 7:7)

The home in which my husband and I previously lived is on a golf course. On the far side of the fairway is a wooded area dense with native trees. From our terrace, I sometime saw flocks of large, black birds circle for hours above the treetops. In time the buzzards disappeared into the woods to feast on lifeless prey.

From that same terrace I watched with joy when a  shimmering green hummingbird zoomed into my flower garden and darted from plant to plant. In time the delicate little creature spotted just the perfect blossom and hovered in mid-air to feast on the nectar.

From the same blue sky the birds spotted vastly different feasts. From a human perspective, the buzzard spied something foul and unappealing. The hummingbird, on the other hand, caught sight of something beautiful and inviting. Why the difference? Because each bird found what it was seeking. Each bird found what it was focused on ... and so it is with us.

Jesus said that a person who seeks will find. Today I asked myself, "What are you looking for, Linda?" I prepared to make a mental list, but images of buzzards and hummingbirds showed me a shortcut. To know what I'm seeking, I must simply take stock of what it is that I'm finding.

At home, at work, in relationships, we find what we're focused on. How careful we must be then to train our eyes on what is positive in life, on all that is uplifting, beautiful, and joyous.  What we find determines the quality of each moment of each day for a lifetime. With God's grace, I intend to follow the lead of a hummingbird shimmering in the sunlight.

Just as you trusted Christ to save you, trust him, too, for each day's problems. Live in vital union with him. (Colossians 2:6)

Do you ever feel as if you're running on spiritual fumes? I do and it's rarely because of the enormous burdens that I am called to bear. Certainly there are times of tremendous stress and spiritual energy can become depleted unless replenished. But, thanks be to God, those difficult times are the exception.

For the most part, we run on spiritual fumes because we have allowed small burdens to accumulate. At work or at home, annoyances pile up, worries amass. Duties that are ours and ours alone are carried out begrudgingly. Sacrifices, once made out of love, become yet another burden laid upon us.

In his letter to the Colossians, Paul encouraged believers to trust Christ our Lord with each day's problems. Safe to say, that is not an easy task, especially for the problem-solvers among us. Success lies in what Paul went on to say. "Live in vital union with Christ."

One simple approach to living in union with Christ, one that I am attempting to embrace, is to carry out a duty as if Christ himself placed the assignment before me. Sometimes the undertaking is a physical task. At other times, the mission is to maintain a Christ-like attitude when my inclination in the circumstance is to do otherwise.

With the assignment complete, however imperfectly, I pause for a spoken or silent prayer of gratitude. Replenished, I find myself more and more able to say, "Here I am, Lord. Send me."

He lifted me out of the slimy pit ... He set my feet on a rock ... He established my goings. (Psalm 40:2)

Contemplating this verse never fails to evoke in my mind the image of a desperate person mired in a pit of quicksand. The more she struggles against her dire circumstances, the more desperate her situation becomes. The harder he tries to remain still and wait for help, the more irresistible is the urge to try and save himself.

 
At some point, we all find ourselves caught in the quicksand of misfortune or bad decisions, our own or others'. Too often, we hold on to faith with one hand, but make futile efforts to climb out of our mess with the other. Attempts to extricate ourselves are wasted.

 

God calls us to relinquish our faith in self-reliance and to grasp with both hands the rope of faith. With this command comes His promise of safety, security and guidance. In the words of the psalmist, he will lift us out of the pit. Safety.  He will set our feet on a rock. Security.  He will establish our goings. Guidance.

 
Isaiah 59:1 presents another picture that fits so beautifully, so powerfully, with the image of the struggler. “Surely the arm of the Lord is not too short to save.” Lay hold of this truth when you are mired in one of life’s inevitable pits. Every thought of these words is one pull nearer to safety, security and guidance.

Now when Jesus saw the crowds, he went up on a mountain and sat down. His disciples came to him, and he began to teach them. (Matthew 5:1-2)

The location of the mountain on which Jesus delivered his great Sermon on the Mount is unclear. It may have been a hillside northwest of the Sea of Galilee, not far from Capernaum. The sermon he delivered was broad in scope and included a teaching on prayer, a clarification of what Christian prayer should and should not be.

In no uncertain terms,  Jesus condemned ostentatious prayer, the kind meant to make the person praying appear pious in the view of others. He also warned against long, mindless prayers and singled out the babble of pagans, perhaps a reference to the practice of reciting a long list of divine names in hopes of eliciting a response from the deity.

In the view of Jesus, personal prayers should be offered in a private place. He promised that the Father hears and answers, and that he knows what we need even before we ask. As a model for communal prayer, he left us the beautiful and powerful words of the Lord's Prayer.

How deeply moved Jesus must have been by the prayer of a certain blind man he met on the Jericho Road. Jesus asked the poor beggar, "What do you want me to do for you?" Bartimaeus answered, "I want to see." His prayer was certainly not ostentatious. nor was it wordy. It was perfect, humble, and heartfelt. "I want to see." And see Bartimaeus did.

We would be wise, from time to time, to make the prayer of Bartimaeus our own. "Lord, I want to see. I want to see myself as you see me, an imperfect vessel being remade by the Master Potter. I don't want to be blind to my sins, while seeing the failures of others with perfect vision. I want to see that you do indeed know what I need even before I ask. And, Lord, when I'm caught in the crosswinds, I want to see that you are with me."

"I do believe. Help me overcome my unbelief!" (Mark 9:24)

These are the words of a desperate father crying out to Jesus for help. The man's son had suffered life-threatening seizures since childhood and he was desperately afraid that the boy would die from them. The disciples had failed to cure the boy, so they brought him to Jesus. When his son began to convulse, the frantic father pleaded, "If you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us." Jesus assured him that everything is possible to one who has faith. The man cried out, "I do believe," but knowing his faith was weak, he added, "Help me overcome my unbelief!"

Every believer identifies with this man's struggle. When we take needs to our Savior, we do so in faith, but we know that our faith is imperfect. Belief is mixed with unbelief. At such times, we take courage in remembering that Jesus didn't require perfect faith of the father who came to him for help. Instead, he eagerly and completely healed the man's son. Beyond that, Jesus taught the boy, his father, and everyone who witnessed the healing a lasting lesson about imperfect faith and the grace of God.

The journey of faith is like a ladder. Each rung is fashioned from a lesson learned -- some when faith is strong, others when it is fragile. Some rungs are hewn from failure; others from success. A few fit instantly into place; far more require repeated measuring and much smoothing by the Lord's plane. Some rungs are milled from deep regret and others from inexpressible joy.

Regardless of how a lesson is learned, the Lord invites us to plant our feet on that rung and to continue our upward progress. On each step, declare to him, "I believe. Help me overcome my unbelief!" And be assured, even if a rung was hewn from great sorrow, we find comfort there, for because of God's grace, even life's crosswinds serve a purpose.

It is good to give thanks to the Lord, to sing praise to the Most High. (Psalm 92:2)

After concluding his Galilean ministry, Jesus began his final journey to Jerusalem. It was at least a three-day trip requiring travel through Samaria. Entering a village near the border, Jesus was moved with compassion for ten lepers who cried out to him from a distance. Responding to their plea, he told the afflicted men to go to the priests and show themselves, the normal procedure after a person was cured from a contagious disease such as leprosy. On the way, the men realized they had been miraculously cured. At last they could return to their families. No longer would they be shunned and isolated.
 
Luke concludes the account of the cleansing by pointing out that only one of the ten returned to Jesus to say thank you. Noting the fact, Jesus asked his disciples, "Didn't I heal ten men? Where are the other nine?" No doubt the disciples disparaged the men's thanklessness, but in truth ingratitude is common among us all.

When a difficult time comes to an end, our first reaction is to take a deep breath of relief and then start putting the crisis behind us. We rush forward to make up for what we perceive as lost time -- time lost to illness, fractured relationships, or foolish decisions. We try to erase even the memory of the crosswind because of the lingering sting of frustration, fear, or hopelessness.

At times we become so focused on moving forward that we fail to thank God for seeing us through. When Jesus pointed out the failing of the nine, he wasn't concerned for himself. He was lamenting their thanklessness because of what it deprived them.

In the words of the psalmist, it is good to give thanks to the Lord. And when our hearts are filled with gratitude, we will always be counted with the one, never numbered among the nine.

The Lord said to her, "Martha, dear friend, you are so anxious over all these details. There is really only one thing worth being concerned about." (Luke 10:41)

When the Galilean ministry of Jesus drew to a close, he began his journey to Jerusalem. On the way, he and his disciples entered a village where a woman named Martha welcomed them into her home. As Jesus began to speak, he captured the attention of Martha's sister Mary who sat at his feet listening.

Martha, on the other hand, was busily serving her family and house guests. In time she grew resentful and complained to Jesus. He recognized that Martha's sense of duty and responsibility had shuffled her priorities. In that moment, she had lost sight of what was truly important, the chance to spend precious time with her friend and teacher. Jesus reminded her tenderly. "Martha, dear friend, you are so anxious over all these details. There is really only one thing worth being concerned about and Mary has discovered it."

In our hectic world, we often find ourselves physically or mentally weary, not unlike Martha. We worry about things over which we have no control. We focus on details that have little or no impact. We rush from task to another, sometimes out of duty, more often out of habit or restless seeking.

Jesus calls us to care for family and friends, and to extend kindness to strangers. But when weariness weighs us down, resentment is sure to follow. Most often the feeling is directed at those we love most. At such times, we are wise to make a prayerful assessment of priorities. Sometimes weariness is the restraining hand of the Holy spirit urging us to spend more time at the feet of Jesus. With our spirits renewed, we can then stand strong against the inevitable crosswinds on our journey.

Jesus went around to the villages in the vicinity teaching. He summoned the Twelve and began to send them out two by two... (Mark 6:6-7)

When Jesus sent the Twelve to proclaim the kingdom of God, he gave them specific instructions. "Take nothing for the journey but a walking stick. No food, no sack, no money, not even a second tunic." Jesus wanted the men to be completely reliant on their Heavenly Father. His instructions were literal, but they were figurative as well, not only for the Twelve but also for us.

The Lord urges us to travel with a light, unburdened heart, leaning on him as one would a walking stick. To do that, we must discard all that is not important for the journey, beginning with material possessions that fail to simplify our lives or those that distract us from the spiritual aspect of our journey.

The Lord also calls us to leave behind the tattered sacks in which we carry regrets about the past, worries about the future, and attitudes in the present that are unproductive, ungracious or uncharitable.

And finally, the Lord instructed us to discard our second tunic, the cloak of self-reliance. Without dependence on him, how can we possibly stand strong against the crosswinds on our journey?

"Well done, my good and faithful servant . . . Come, share in my joy!" (Matthew 25:23)

In modern Christianity there is a great deal of emphasis on the joy of living a God-guided life. Joy is the subject of countless sermons, books, and personal testimonies. I wonder, though, if we have reached a point where the expectation of Christian joy is over-emphasized or its meaning misunderstood.

Has your life been a consistently joyous journey? Mine hasn't. Frankly there are times in which my walk with Christ seems like a march, not a journey, and a toilsome one at that. During those joyless times, I have wondered if something in my life was amiss or askew, or if my faith was somehow faulty.

Over time, those concerns have given way, and my long-held perspective on joy has given me stamina for the marches within my journey. Joy is not an emotion evoked by a sense of well-being. Joy is a gift ... a reward for a job well done, for faithfulness with much or little, for trusting when we cannot see.

During the stretches between the promise and the reward, we do well to concentrate on the march, not on how we feel as we move forward. Joy will come! It is our heart's response to the Spirit's whisper, "Well done, my good and faithful servant. Come, share in My joy!"