Numbers 23:3 Then Balaam said to Balak, “Stand beside your burnt offering, and I will go; perhaps the LORD will come to meet me, and whatever He shows me I will tell you.” So he went to a bare hill. This sounds familiar. When people who know want to hear from God, they get away from the noise and the crowds. Jesus did this, a lot. Moses went up on Mt. Sinai alone, he saw the burning bush alone, he went into the Tabernacle alone, and he heard from God, a lot. That’s one reason that I love my early mornings – alone. It’s quiet and I can hear. That’s not to say I hear a lot… my mind is sometimes just as bad as other noise. But it’s in these quiet moments that I get a few minutes of peace, when I can read God’s Words without distraction (for the most part – I just got distracted by looking up Jewish schools to see if my kids could learn Torah – sadly, since neither John nor I am Jewish, I’ll have to find another way), and when I can reflect on what I read instead of rushing through it…. And now G. is up and I must go. So much for quiet reflection. God is laughing at me.
Isaiah 30:15 …only in returning to me and waiting for me will you be saved. In quietness and confidence is your strength. I can’t do anything to save myself except to return to and wait for God. The next part really hit me. Quietness and confidence is my strength. I so often think that action is strength. Doing things, being something. But, here it says quietness. “Be still and know that I am God.” Another translation says, “Be quiet…” Quietness means not telling God what to do, not rushing around trying to fix it; It’s letting go of control, surrendering, being still and quiet. That is so hard to do! Confidence is trusting God to be in control, that He made me exactly the way He wanted me to be, He knows what He is doing, and He will make it work out. By being confident that God has it well in hand, I can rest quietly and not squirm or mess things up with my meddling. This is strength because it’s harder to not do something sometimes than it is to do something. It takes strength to hold on and let God be God.