I Thessalonians 4:11,12 – “Quiet”

As always, here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:

… But we are urging you, brothers, to abound more and more, ¹¹and to make it [your] ambition to live quietly, and to mind your own [business], and to work with your hands, just as we commanded you, ¹²that you might walk becomingly toward those outside, and [that] you might have need of nothing [or no one].

Oh, my! What a pleasant passage of Scripture! I have long loved these verses as they are so intensely practical and, if I may add, so completely contrary to what I think gets taught in American churches. Just think – God actually tells us to live quietly and mind our own business! I would suggest it is some kind of American idea that if you aren’t making “a lot of noise,” somehow you just aren’t what you should be. Maybe it comes from our advertising industry that incessantly barrages us with, “Look at this! Look at this! Buy me! Buy me!” Then we get the impression that is the way our lives should be – that somehow our faith should be being broadcast in some loud, emphatic way – that somehow we need to be living “loud?” Yet God says “Make it your ambition to be quiet …”

I want to stop and ponder this business of being “quiet.” This study has really helped me, I think. For years I had such a terrible problem with worrying. I knew somehow I should trust God but, every time I got hit in the face with some new problem, I would worry myself sick until finally the Lord accomplished His good and wise purpose, then I would kick myself for not trusting Him. “Why did you doubt?” Jesus asked Peter (and me), and I had to answer, “I don’t know! I don’t want to doubt You, but I don’t know how to stop!” After all those years of praying and studying, He finally took me to Psalm 111 and showed me Himself so clearly I finally could see past my fears and actually trust His goodness. My wife brought it to a glorious conclusion one day when she off-handedly remarked, “Today is just today.” In an instant, it all made sense to me, to simply trust God with my today, to live for Him and with Him in it, and to honestly leave tomorrow to His wonderfully wise and kind providence.

The last year or so has been a much quieter place inside this man’s heart – thankfully! I have always loved the story of Jesus stilling the storm. “Peace, be still,” He told the storm, “and there was a great calm.” I longed for years for Him to say to my storm, “Peace, be still,” and He finally did.

And it has been wonderful.

But.

I’ve known all the time there was more. Although the Lord has helped me (a LOT!) to put away the worrying, still I don’t do a very good job of dealing with the intensity of my everydays. I feel like most of the time I go to work and I have a completely impossible workload. I don’t know if everyone feels like that at work, but I know the other engineers at my office all definitely share my anxieties. We all feel like we work at light-speed all day every day but never get ahead. I often go to work feeling like I cannot possibly get all of this done, then get only more work as the day goes on. And home isn’t much better. I just can’t get it all done. “There isn’t enough of me!” I want to shout. “I can’t do it all!”

So … while the Lord really stilled the storm of worry in my heart, I’ve told Joan I am aware that somehow I’m still not doing well with handling this everyday problem of dealing with my (seemingly impossible) workload. Somehow, even if I have an impossible workload, I don’t have to work all day in this emotional froth. I knew that somehow that storm needed to be stilled. And so I’ve studied on, confident in my heart that sooner or later the Lord will show me something to help with this too, that He would yet still this daily storm that continues to rage in my soul.

And I think He has done just that – or at least started – with the simple words, “Make it your ambition to live a quiet life …” In Greek, it is simply, “Make it your ambition to be quiet …” I think it is a very good translation to make it read “to live a quiet life,” but it really helps me to know it is simply “to be quiet.”

Quiet. Calm. Peaceful. It reminds me of Psalm 46:10, “Be still and know that I am God.”

I don’t think anyone would question that the “quiet” and the “Be still” are primarily soul words, that they are not necessarily referring to how much “noise” you might literally be making. It’s what’s going on inside. We can be completely silent, not make any noise at all, and still have a storm literally raging inside of us. I think we could all agree the primary place where this “quiet” should (and needs to) happen is inside of us.

I think of Isaiah’s words, “‘Peace, peace, to them that are near and them that are far,’ says the Lord, ‘and I will heal them. But the wicked are not so. They are like the troubled sea which cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt. There is no peace,’ saith my God, ‘to the wicked’” (57:19-21). “Like the troubled sea which cannot rest” – that’s a pretty good description of what I’ve always found my heart was too often like. But to His people, Jesus says, “Peace I leave with you; My peace I give you … I have told you these things, so that in Me you may have peace. In this world, you will have trouble; but take heart! I have overcome the world” (John 14:27; 16:33).

Quiet. That means not worrisome, agitated, fearful, discontent, restless, harried, or even quarrelsome, malicious, factious, covetous, or a whole host of other adjectives we could think of. I think for me, it would be the “harried.” To think that I don’t have to be harried means that even if I feel completely overwhelmed, I can still be quiet inside. Jesus has overcome the world. He’s in charge. He can handle it. He’s working all things together for good, for His great eternal plan. All of the days ordained for me were written in His book before one of them came to be. So, Don, just “Be still, and know that I am God.”

Quiet. That’s what I need. Inside. Quiet because I’m confident in my good, wise Lord.

Quiet.

Be still, O my soul.