In need of a Selah ~

 

 

I’m longing for a pause. 

 

These days are filled with commotion and excitement.  A long to-do list vies for my attention.  There are gifts to be shipped {which, incidentally, will not be arriving on time}. Cards to be mailed.  Presents to be wrapped. Laundry to be done.  Kids. Work.  And a loved one lying in a hospital bed several hours away that I want to visit.  I am pulled in a thousand directions. And there aren’t enough hours in the day.

 

Time slips away as I scratch through the checklist. Prayers are lifted up in fragments as I go from point A to point B.  And amid all the hustle and bustle I sense a vacancy within me.  Followed by a faint voice.  A call from another Place.  An invitation from my Beloved. 

 

My heart longs for the One whose robes are “fragrant with myrrh, aloes and cassia”.  The vacancy reminds me.  I need time with Him. A pause.  Space to recline into Him. To be filled again. 

 

 

 

 

Thou hast given a banner to them that fear Thee, that it may be displayed because of the truth.                                                     

Psalm 60:4

 

 

After this glorious word about the banner, there is a Selah. If the word there was the sign for a sounding of trumpets, a shout of triumph, then the thought is praise before we see the victory; but I think it may possibly be the other kind of Selah, the sign for a Pause, even in the thick of the fight.  This at least is the kind we must often have if we are to go on to do valiantly; and sometimes I wonder if there is anything else the devil contests with greater determination. The moment we set ourselves to be quiet and seek our God in stillness, there is a clamor about us; we remember things we should do, or have forgotten to do; we are disturbed in a hundred ways—anything to break into that Selah.  All this is simply proof of how much it matters that we should have it. It would not be so contested if it did not matter.  There is a kind of comfort in this.

 

So let us take heart and not give way, and not be discouraged, even though, like the old Puritan, we are “some time in getting access”.  We have a God who understands.

 

Amy Carmichael

Excerpt from "Thou givest, They gather"

 

 

 

O God, You are always calling us. Waiting for us. Stir our hearts to fly to You. Speak over the noise of our frenzied existence and give us ears to hear You.  Move our feet to run to You. Fix our gaze upon Your beauty. Envelop us in Your mighty arms. For You, above all things, are our Beloved. And we, whether we know it or not, are desperate for You. In the most precious name of Jesus, Amen.