Silent Construction
Soul Snack 44/13 ... Silent Construction.
We read of the temple of Solomon, when it was being built, that it was built of stone made ready in the quarry, so that neither hammer nor axe nor any tool of iron was heard in the house while it went up.
In building the temple, only blocks dressed at the quarry were used, and no hammer, chisel or any other iron tool was heard at the temple site while it was being built. (1 Kings 6:7)
So it is, that the great work of spiritual temple-building goes on continually in this world. We are all really silent builders. The kingdom of God comes not with observation. The divine Spirit works in silence, changing men's hearts, transforming lives, comforting sorrow, kindling hope in darkened bosoms, washing scarlet souls white as snow! The preacher may speak with the voice of a Boanerges but the power which reaches hearts is not the preacher's noise; silently the divine voice whispers in the soul its secret of convictions. The Lord is not in the storm, in the earthquake, in the fire but in the sound of gentleness, the Spirit's whisper, which breathes through the soul.
Perhaps the best work any of us do in this world is that which we do without noise. Words give forth sound but it is not the sounds which do good, which brighten sad faces as people listen, which change tears to laughter, which stimulate hope, which places courage into fainting hearts it is not the noise of our words but the thoughts which the words carry. It is life which builds, and life is silent. The force which works in our homes is a silent force mother-love, father-love, patience, gentleness, prayer, truth, the influences of divine grace.
It is the same in the building up of personal character in each of us. There may be a great deal of noise all about us but it is in silence that we grow. From a thousand sources come the little blocks that are laid upon the walls the lessons we get from others, the influences friends exert upon us, the truths our reading puts into our minds, the impressions life leaves upon us and the inspirations we receive from the divine Spirit. Ever the builders are at work on these characters of ours but they work silently, without noise of hammer or axe. ("Without Axe or Hammer" ~ J.R.Miller#)
God's quiet, unseen and deliberate building programs are best hammered out in the silence Moses heard in the desert, Elijah listened to at the Kerith Ravine and Jesus knelt in at Gethsemane. We need silence to both hear it and be built up.
Today's Soul Snippet:
"The static of this world makes it hard to hear the Spirit of God." ~ Gary Barkalow
Enjoy more SoulSnacks on Stillness and silence
# Dr J.R.Miller was a prolific author and popular American Presbyterian minister of the nineteenth century.
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