Isaiah 30
15For thus the Lord GOD, the Holy One of Israel, has said,
"In repentance and rest you will be saved,
In quietness and trust is your strength."
But you were not willing,
16And you said, "No, for we will flee on horses,"
Therefore you shall flee!
"And we will ride on swift horses,"
Therefore those who pursue you shall be swift.
Before I created a blog, I wanted a name for my blog that would 1) sound cool, and 2) mirror what I envisioned the blog to be about or what aspect I wanted it to represent of me. Caleb stole the "down on my knees," which is really the one I thought of doing first because I wanted something about prayer--partly because of something that he shared with me one time during sophomore year that I thought was really cool. Just this quote by this guy (whose name I forget--maybe it was C.T. Studd? I get him confused with other people) that went something like this (very big paraphrase), "Sometimes I have so much to do that I have to get on my knees and pray for 3 hours."
I just thought that quote really summed up what our attitude ought to be about prayer--that when we think about prayer, it seems like we're just not doing anything. There's so much pressure to be efficient and use our time wisely, that we don't really understand what it means to say that prayer is using our time well, because we like tangible things, and results that we can show ourselves and show others to prove that something came out of our time. From reading a book on prayer (The Prayer Life by Andrew Murray), he said that the cause of prayerlessness is the enmity of the flesh, and that Satan is the one who really wants us to underestimate the power of prayer--and that's exactly what we do.
There have been times when I've just set aside a lot of time to sit in my room here at UPenn to just pray, to quiet my heart, and I've really enjoyed that, but it's funny to see that even though I've had joy in just praying, and I know/have been told about the need and power of prayer, that it's still so easy to push prayer until later. Or to say a quick prayer, just so I can say that I've prayed everyday, when really, I know that I'm missing out on something big. There are times when things just tend to pile up--going to work, going to Bible study, sending out emails to brothers and sisters, hanging out with brothers and sisters, or being around nonChristian friends, with the hope of sharing the good news with them at an opportune time. But, nonetheless, there's always a time during the day, when we have that time to spend in quiet with God, but during those times I notice that I choose to just watch a movie or watch TV, or read sports articles instead. But even more, as well, I realize in my head the need to understand that it's great to want to help people out, encourage brothers and sisters, reach out to others, but that prayer is our ultimate ministry. That prayer ought to be the foundation of all these things, but it's such a struggle to have a life of prayer.
But anyway, so the reason why I chose this name "In Quietness and Rest," was 1) because I forgot what the verse above actually said, so I kind of misquoted it, and 2) because it's a reminder to me that I do all these things to try to save myself--flee on horses, or raise up an army to defend myself, and it just seems to make sense that this is what we ought to do if we want to have success, but it's so contradictory and mind-boggling to think that if we would rest in the Lord and commit the things in our lives to Him, that He would be our strength and salvation. Basically, the verse that everyone likes, "Be still, and know that I am God." To let things go--to let ourselves lose control over things, and give that control over to God. It's kind of a scary thing
