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 be quiet, 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].
Wow has this been a fun week. I have really enjoyed doing my
work while trying to stay quiet inside. It is DIFFERENT, for sure. In some ways
I feel like I just stepped out into air. On the other hand, it is a very
secure, confident thing, knowing this change was drawn from the wells of grace.
The same Lord who tells me to be quiet also says “Whatever you do, work at it
with all your heart.” As always, His truth comes with a very sweet sense of
balance. It doesn’t make us cuckoo. It makes us better.
I hope it’s not true that I just happened not to be that
busy this week. I don’t think that’s the case as I had days where, as usual,
work seemed to come in faster than I could do it. But this week I just tried to
stay quiet inside and keep pulling out the next thing, working on it as much as
I could or as much as I actually needed to, then moving on to the next thing. I
believe I was able to leave on Friday with things under control. I was able to “get
things done” while I think I really did manage to stay quiet inside most of the
week. Time will tell, but my heart tells
me this is real, that it is a grace change.
The wonderful thing is when changes like this really do come
from the Lord. As I mentioned above, He really does keep things in balance. I
recently happened upon some clips from the old 70’s TV show “Kung Fu” with
David Carradine. I was reminded how he portrayed how orientals typically value a
quiet spirit. Being “quiet” inside or “serene” is of course very oriental,
being taught in things like Yoga and Transcendental Meditation, etc. Carradine’s
character Caine was a Shaolin monk and always stayed very calm, even when he
was karate chopping some bully or thug. I am thinking we all find this oriental
idea very attractive, but we never quite know how to pull it off and still get
anything done. We can’t see how to accomplish the balance. I guess what I’m
saying is that I feel like that is exactly what the Lord has taught me – how to
do both. So maybe the next time I am karate chopping some bully or thug, I can
do it quietly(!).
I have very deeply enjoyed reading the comments of the old
Reformed pastors. Today’s commentators just rush by these verses and see little
to comment on. The old guys went on for paragraphs! There was a time when the
church valued the quiet hard work of common people and, when they came across
verses like this, they had much to say to commend them. It is sad that we have
so totally lost that. It is interesting to me too to read the thoughts of
people who lived in a culture that could see through our American fascination
with frenzy. One old guy was discussing how this very resolve to hard-working quietness
leaves one balancing between “idleness” and “busy-ness.” Surprisingly, he said,
“I’d rather err to the side of being idle than of being too busy.” That
statement itself almost caught me off-guard. It is down-right unsettling. “Err
to the side of being too idle???” Ye gads, Heaven forbid! We can’t risk the possibility
of letting 20 seconds slip by without cramming it full of busy-ness, can we??? …
or can we? Maybe he’s right. Maybe in our mad rush, we end up doing less than
we really could have. Maybe we miss the things that really should have been
done. Maybe we miss what really mattered after all.
I’m reminded of Louie L’Amour’s words, “The trail is the
thing, not the end of the trail. Travel too fast and you miss everything you’re
traveling for.”
Another quote comes to mind, “Time is significant, but the
realization it is unimportant is the gateway to wisdom.”
My daughter Esther spent two or three weeks in England
recently as part of a sort of mini-exchange student situation. She is actually
a teacher and was one of the adults taking a group of middle-school students to
England to actually attend their school and see how they do things. One of the
things that amazed Esther was how they are always taking breaks. Always. Constantly.
Several times a day. She observed that their culture simply isn’t in a hurry. I
remember hearing that, thinking to myself it is probably a far better way to
live, but not knowing how to be like that and still get anything done! With the
teaching of I Thes 4:11,12, I think I am beginning to understand.
As I’ve studied, I even ran across a quote from a most
unlikely source, The Advanced Textbook of Geology:
Here,
then, [in the quiet action of wind and waves] we may observe great effects
produced without fuss, and we may easily observe, in the phenomena of social
life, that there are plenty of illustrations there of the same principle. The
whirlwind of revolutions and hurricane of insurrections have no doubt produced
startling consequences. But the influence of noble ideas, spoken by
undemonstrative men, or embalmed in unpretending volumes, and of pious lives
lived in seclusion, has produced a far greater effect upon the civilization of
the world than all the blustering storms of war raised by kings and factions
and reverberating through history.
That obviously is not an American textbook!
Such good truths to learn!
God is not in the tornado. I’d like to write a book with
that title.
All very, very interesting to me.
This is fun!
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