Thought of the Day January 20, 2023 Be still
"Most of us distrust God. Most of us think of God as a fearful, punitive authority or as an empty, powerless nothing. Jesus’ core message was that God is neither a powerless weakling nor a powerful boss, but a lover, whose only desire is to give us what our hearts most desire.
"To pray is to listen to that voice of love. That is what obedience is all about. The word obedience comes from the Latin word ob-audire, which means “to listen with great attentiveness.” Without listening, we become “deaf” to the voice of love. The Latin word for deaf is surdus. To be completely deaf is to be absurdus, yes, absurd. When we no longer pray, no longer listen to the voice of love that speaks to us in the moment, our lives become absurd lives in which we are thrown back and forth between the past and the future.
"If we could just be, for a few minutes each day, fully where we are, we would indeed discover that we are not alone and that the One who is with us wants only one thing: to give us love." (Henri Nouwen)
It is amazing that the one thing we desperately need is the one thing we are afraid of getting from the one who truly loves us. We are afraid of silence because we are afraid we will hear nothing. But in the silence and stillness of our hearts, God reveals his deepest love for us. Is that the reason he tells us: "Be still and know that I am God"?
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