WEDNESDAY'S WORD - SPEECHLESS - Sadell Bradley - New Life Covenant Cincinnati

"Nature best teaches how to pray, and how to reverence all the gifts the Almighty has given us. She is like a vast outspread handkerchief, embroidered with God's eternal name, on which we may dry alike our tears of sorrow and joy; she turns weeping into ecstasy, and fills our hearts with speechless, quiet reverence and resignation."  Robert Schuman   W.A.I.T. - Why. Am. I. Talking.?  This is a great introspective question. My mom used to admonish her students, "Zip your lips!" Why DO we talk so much? Sometimes it's because we feel we've not been heard. Sometimes it's to prove a point. Are we talking because we can't stand the dead air of silence? Or is it because our feelings and nerves are causing us to chatter.  There are very few things that render most of us SPEECHLESS, but there certainly could be more. Speechless means something has occurred that can't be expressed in words. The event or person has left us unable to speak because of shock or some strong emotion. Speech, the faculty that we usually use to communicate our deepest thoughts and feelings, has been temporary suspended in awe over what we've just seen, heard, felt or experienced.  We can be rendered speechless when  shocked by someone's audacity, or by something stunningly beautiful.   When was the last time you were rendered speechless? Have you been too busy to even notice your surroundings, or your loved ones? Like Robert Schuman, King David marveled at God's creative genius, "When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them? You have made them a little lower than the angels and crowned them with glory and honor." (Psalm 8:3-5) Sometimes all it takes for us to be overcome by the LORD's Presence is to shut our mouths, open our eyes, and behold the splendor of His majesty. We see it in the heavens and the earth. Consider your life, your loves, and the time God allowed you. "The LORD is in His holy temple, let all the earth keep silence before Him. Keep silence, keep silence, before Him." (Reference Hab. 2:20) The chancel choir sang this chant in my childhood church. Silence is a spiritual discipline. In Friends' schools we learned its value through hour-long Quaker Meetings. Every week K-12, we practiced the discipline of silence and were encouraged to reflect on God's glory, or meditate on our own thoughts and feelings. How quiet can you be? for how long? How about in tense meetings or stressful situations? Proverbs 17:28 says, "Even fools are thought wise when they keep silent; with their mouths shut, they seem intelligent."  I want to be rendered and choose to be speechless more often... for all the right reasons - don't you?

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