The Pastor as Caregiver: Learning to Listen {Transcript}

1. Learning to Listen
I’ve turned to Isaiah chapter 50 verse four. And the question that we’re asking is, okay, when we’re in the midst of pressures and stresses, and we’re looking for a particular kind of rest, but that kind of rest is not available to us and we wanna surrender to the kind of rest God is giving, what if we’re the friend? What if we’re Titus that comes to Paul and sits with him? We’ve talked about presence and time. We’ve talked about shared stories and being with. But to be able to sustain with the word, the person who’s weary, what is that like? And so Isaiah 50:4 has become a text along with some of the others we’ve been looking at together at texts that I return to again and again that’s in this series of the suffering servant for shadowing the Lord Jesus who’s coming. And it simply says this, “the Lord God has given me the tongue of those who are taught that I may know how to sustain with the word him who is weary. Morning by morning he awakens; he awakens my ear to hear as those who are taught.”
A. God has taken the Initiative.
Let’s pray. Lord, we ask for grace to behold You. That You would enable us to experience Your wisdom and Your kind persistent loving willingness to teach us how to sustain with the word those who are weary, and that the weary are on Your heart and that this is what You would teach. And we thank You for how all this fulfilled and upheld and illumined in our savior Jesus. We ask Your spirit to make much of Your word for us. In Your name we pray. Amen. The Lord God has given me, it sounds so basic, doesn’t it? But there’s a God-centered beginning. God takes the initiative. The Lord God. And sometimes just walking into a situation we just need to remind ourselves of this initiative of God to say the Lord God. Everything else flows from Him. And the initiative of God moving into our lives gifts us with a tongue that is words, it gifts us with an ability to sustain the weary, and gifts us with a capacity for hearing and listening. So let’s think about these things for a moment. If we’re coming in as a listening caregiver, if we ourselves are going to offer rest to someone else that assumes that we have rest to offer, and so we begin with this purpose of God. Isn’t it something that God has on His heart to sustain the weary? Isn’t that remarkable? Some of you perhaps have grown up in ways of thinking about God. He’s the frowning tyrant of a God. He’s a God that loves to give you zits, loves to give you a cold and give it to you so that it lasts. And He’s the God who’s always against you, always trying to find a reason to discipline you. But here is the God whose aim in all of His holiness is to be mindful of those who are full of despair and at their limit, at their wits end, and to relate to them in such a way that they get through. This word weary is used throughout the Book of Isaiah. I’ll remind you of one passage. “He gives power to the faint and to him who has no might he increases strength. They who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings like eagles. They shall run and not be weary. They shall walk and not faint.” This is the commitment of God to His people, that they receive from Him a knowledgeable wise initiative that enables them to be sustained by Him by His word and their weariness. Jesus, our Lord, fulfills this, pictures it. “Come to me all you who are weary, heavy laden. I will give you rest.” This is a great encouragement for those of us who are saying I don’t have rest. And the issue with the Lord never is that you have enough rest in that sense that you yourself can always find all the rest. He has it. He has it to give. And so if you find yourself weary and heavy laden even, even because you have stubbornly resisted the Genesis rhythms of work and rest or if you’ve thought that you were immune and you’ve been bitten by a snake, even then, even if you’ve chosen busyness rather than the one thing that needs doing, even for you He says come I will give you rest.
B. Consider God’s Holy Initiative.
This posture of, is pictured in the Apostle Paul. He tells us about our talking. He says let your speech always be gracious seasoned with salt, but why? So that you may know how you ought to answer each person. That sounds very similar, doesn’t it? So know how to sustain with the word him who is weary means that we have to listen before we speak the apostle Paul is saying. So know who it is we’re speaking to and how in that context we’re to answer who go on to say we speak what is good for building up as fits the occasion that it may give grace to those who hear. Ephesians 4:29. So God takes this initiative to give rest for the weary. Sometimes we picture God in His holy initiative. I’m gonna ask you to consider something. You don’t have to agree with me. We’ll be in heaven together because of Christ. But I do ask you to consider it. I ask you to consider it. When you think about the holy character of God, how do you think of Him? I thought of God as frowning always at me, and that to be the most holy would mean that we are the most intense, the most angry, the most upset, the most rigid, the most strict. And that would be holiness. And I derive such things from thoughts like this as Isaiah who writes this of the suffering servant, stands before the throne of God and Cherubim, Seraphim are veiling their faces. And they’re all crying out holy, holy, holy. And the whole place is shaking. I always assumed that what they were veiling themselves from was some terrible presence. But what if, what if what they saw was holiness? We know what holiness is. Paul will tell us about the fruit of the spirit of God, the thing the spirit of God produces peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, love, self control. I’m asking you to consider something about this God who sustains the weary with the word. I’m inviting you not to agree with me. I’m asking what if what Isaiah saw and those angels saw, what is it that what if the holiness that caused them to veil their faces wasn’t that they saw frowning terrible intense strictness. What if they veiled their faces because what they saw was pristine purity? Perfect gentleness? Pure peace? Infinite kindness? Explosive gentleness? Pure unstained love? Unblemished self control? Then wouldn’t it make sense what Isaiah’s response was? Because what did he say? I am unclean. I was wondering why he say he’s unclean. Why was he, “You’re right, you’re right. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” Why was… I am unclean. Do you remember when Peter said those words to Jesus, go away from me, I am unclean? Do you remember what he was responding to? Was it a frowning terrifying Jesus? No. He’d been fishing. He hadn’t caught any fish. Jesus said try your nets on the other side. He said well, I haven’t caught anything but if you say so okay. Throws the nets on the other side, fills with fish. And the presence of that glad, abundant provision, Peter’s response is I am unclean. Go away. Have you ever been agitated by someone not because they’re mad at you but because they’re responding so well? You just wish they’d get mad. You’re just waiting for them to get mad, but they just are responding to you with grace and integrity and it makes you upset ’cause we don’t know what to do with that. If they’re gonna relate to this way, it will require us to change. But if they would just fight, I know how to do that. What if what makes God’s holiness holy isn’t that He’s mean? What if we can’t see Him and live not because He’s so meanly grotesque in His strictness? What if we can’t see Him and live because He is light? And in Him there is no darkness. And that means that He is more gentle, more peaceable, more kind, more loving, more for joy, and more self-controlled than anything or anyone we’ve ever encountered. And we cannot handle it because we are none of those things. See what you make of that. So that those among us who are the most holy it will not be because you frown the best and can quote the most precise, but that you are the most patient, the most gentle, the most kind, self-controlled person. And in that we see the character of the holy one.
2. Learn to Behold
Why would God care about the weary? Shouldn’t they just get on with it and catch up? Aren’t they just holding Him back? And yet this is His initiative as He brings His kingdom about to the weary around His heart. How do we grow attentive to this initiative purpose to sustain the weary with the word? We learn to behold. Now the word behold, as you know, is just used throughout the scripture. We’re told to behold this and behold that. Behold God, behold providence, behold things in creation, behold moments, behold persons. And you know the word behold means stop. Pause. Shh. Stop everything you’re doing, commit full attention to the thing you are about to see or the thing I’m about to say. Behold. We’re regularly called to this work of beholding. It is what’s being spoken of here. The Lord God has given me, He has initiated in my life. He has acted upon my life. I am responding to Him. He is front and center. I am secondary. What does this mean if we’re growing attentive to beholding God in creation and providence and redemption and every small thing and beholding Him in the pains of people who sin and the pains of people who we’re sinned against and beholding Him even here, not as if He’s somewhere else busy while we have our conference, but as if He’s here. And He is moving into our life to give us something. It changes the way we approach meeting with someone. Let’s imagine you’re Titus about to meet with Paul. Here’s what you can know. First, God was with Paul, Titus, before you guys are meeting. God is with Paul as you are meeting. When Paul leaves Titus, God goes with Paul. That means Titus, you are not the center of this meeting. It is the Lord God who must do something and we behold it. We learn that God, and we believe this because of our doctrine of providence that God is already at work in someone’s life. He is already in their life in some way whether they acknowledge it or not. And so when they come to sit in front of you over coffee or in your office or wherever it is, you are not the first to arrive on the scene. She is. Therefore when you meet, behold. Ssh. Be quiet. Listen. This means that we become listening talkers. And hearing listeners. The listening talker, it’s right there. The Lord God has given me the tongue. Speak. Of those who are taught. That means we’ve been quiet and learned. We talk out of having first listened.
A. Speak from Listening.
Now I teach analytics preaching. I’m constantly teaching people how to talk. And it’s a dangerous business. You know why? Because wisdom like this tells us to be quick to listen. James chapter one. Slow to speak, slow to anger. Quick, listen. Slow speak, slow anger. Why? James tells us many of us stumble on many things. Let not many of you be teachers my brothers. Why? Because the primary thing he highlights that we all stumble in is the tongue, our use of words. Our use of words. Listen to what wisdom tells us about our use of words. A fool multiplies words. Ecclesiastes 10. There is a time to speak and a time to keep silent. The foolish are always talking, they don’t listen. Even their questions are veiled comments and opinions, Proverbs 23:9. Have you ever been in a situation where someone asks you question, only they weren’t asking you a question they were making a comment in your bible study or your house? Or have you ever done that? Yeah I just have one question. I’d like to tell you why I think you’re mistaken because I– Or I like to ask you a question. Don’t you really think or mean that we should– And it isn’t a question at all. It’s disingenuous, it’s cloak and dagger , it’s falling. The wise don’t have to cloak and dagger their question. The fool assumes they know the answers before they’ve understood the questions. Proverbs 18:13. Have you ever had that someone sits in front of you maybe even married for a while and you see young couple get engaged, and they come to you and ask you for advice and you just assumed you already know everything to tell them. Why? ‘Cause you’ve been there once. You know what I’m saying? Is it just me? So you just assume as a counselor, in pastoral counseling, you’ve seen a certain thing so many times that by now someone mentioned something we’re on alert and we’re already mobilized what to say to them. And we’ve cut listening short the way we didn’t use to. Well we do know. ‘Cause we just assumed, ah, right, this, this and this, diagnosis, category, boom, scripture. Do you remember when you first began when you didn’t know a thing and you knew it? So we’re slowed down. A foolish will not admit that they need correction nor will they submit to it when it’s offered. Proverbs 17:2. The foolish speak in ignorance, they slander others. Proverbs 10:18. They mislead others with their words, Proverbs 14:16. They give wrong assessments about things, Proverbs 10:14. They speak at the wrong times. They openly display their impatience and anger with their words. Listening talkers, you see, are those who have been given a tongue of those who’ve been taught.
So we speak out of having listened. So when someone comes and sits in front of you, the arrogance I have in my heart that I think I already know what to say. Or I’m so self-aware and I think I need to fix it all that I start fumbling for words to make us all feel fixed. It is the most difficult thing about speaking on these topics because nothing I can say can fix a thing in your life. No conference can do that. It is a felt vulnerability. I wanna create something, don’t you? So that we go away feeling fixed. But we can’t. All we can do and everything we can do is gather around His word. Listen, meditate on it. Take it up. Look to Him and become a community of the thought so that we can sustain the weary. And boy, that changes how we might hear in our circles here what a community of the thought looks like. A community to the thought, maybe you instinctively think distant academic theologian. But this picture isn’t like that. It’s the one able comfortable enough to enter the weariness of another and to speak from God out of having listened a word, not a lot of words that can sustain. Not fix, not take it away, not usher in the new kingdom and bring heaven but sustain. What a privilege. So what this means for us is we’re following our savior who did not speak on His own authority, he said, “but the Father who sent me has Himself given me a commandment what to say, what to speak. What I say therefore I say as the Father has told me,” John 12. The Lord Jesus is speaking as one who’s been taught. And we seek to follow that. Now he’s being quiet with us. Has the Lord Jesus ever been quiet with you? You wanted to talk right now and you’d like to know the answer and He’s with you but no answer’s coming. You know that when you’ve known someone well enough and long enough and when you trust the relationship, you can go on a long car ride and not really have to say a whole lot to each other. Sometimes. There’s no insecurity, you see, to try to create something and make sure we keep feeling like we’re in love, because we already know we are. So we rest. In that sort of way the Lord is with us. This is no silent treatment. This isn’t any empty silence. He is listening for the God who’s initiated with Him to hear so he can speak out of having heard from God.
B. Solitude leads to Hospitality.
Now right there there’s an important thing that you and I need to know. Solitude leads to hospitality. Another way to say it, offering the hospitable presence of Christ to someone requires prior solitude. In order for me to know how to sustain a word in your weariness with you, that’s hospitable presence, I have to first listen in the quiet to God. It’s a mistake when we try to mobilize small groups and church ministry or in counseling sessions, and we talk about how to do community without talking about prior solitude. That’s why our groups struggle sometimes to function, because community life, for me to come in to community with you, if I am not listening in Christ becoming one who’s taught then I just bring all my unmeditated stuff at you on a Thursday night in a living room at our house group. And if you yourself have not quieted to listen and hear and behold anything in several days, then you too just bring your unmeditated words to me. And there we are, both of us, just multiplying words rather than a word that can sustain. So the powerhouse of it is the gospel works in us this attentiveness. Here old Mathew Henry, he says it this way, we must study to be quiet. The most of men are ambitious of the honor of great business and power and preferment. They covet it, they cord it, they encompass sea and land to obtain it but the ambition of a Christian should be carried out towards quietness. His expounding on 1 Thessalonians 4. Aspire to live a quiet life to mind your own affairs. So what does this mean? Least talking is those who’ve listened. It means like the wise in the Old Testament we begin to speak fewer words. Is that scary? For some of you, that’s scary. For some us, it’s coming to realize that words cannot save us. Your greatest hope for saving someone isn’t your ability to speak. Your greatest hope is that what you speak has been taught to you by God and it is timely spoken. You know when it’s like when you depend upon your words to get through a day. I mean a lot us here are gifted with words and so we think, if I could just get that text just right, if I could just get that email, just enough emojis, just a language then, and we actually think to our self, then everything will be good. But you and I both know that sometimes the problem we have isn’t because the thing is reasonable or not. It could be the most reasonable things said to us and it doesn’t matter. Is it just me who’s sometimes irrational on my pain and sin? Aren’t you a part of this company that I’m in? And someone can speak kind, plain truth to you, logically stated, artistically, aesthetically pleasing, timely fitted just for your occasion and you have none of it. How else do we explain the crucifixion of our savior? Was it a matter of communication that you just need to rearrange your sentences better? No. There’s no one more clear, more plain, more compelling, more right, more logically sound than our Lord Jesus and they listened to Him and they killed Him. Our words are not our great hope even though we work hard to communicate well with them. Behind them there is a word given, taught in a community, a company of the thought that seek to speak those words to the weary.
C. Be Slow to Speak
This means as James tells us, “Know this my beloved brothers, let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger.” Yikes, ah. Now, I do need to say this somebody here is thinking, yes I love this message because you’re introverted like me and you don’t like to talk. And so I wanna clarify something, there is a time to speak. I’m not talking about cowardice, it’s not the quiet of cowardliness, it’s not the quiet of indifference, it’s not the quiet of apathy, it’s not an empty quiet, they’ll take care of it. It isn’t a quiet of silent treatments, it isn’t a quiet of introverted fear. It is a quiet that is fully engaged with beholding God so that in the presence of a person I can know what to say that God will use to sustain them. Not because my knowing what to say is our great hope but because that He isn’t working it. So we’re quick, quick, quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger. How do you do that? Why, the anger of men doesn’t produce the righteousness of God, verse 20. It just doesn’t. The fruit of the flesh doesn’t bring about the fruit of the spirit, it just doesn’t. And so we gotta have a different way as we’re listening to someone. So they come, Paul sits in front of us, Titus, we’re beholding God. Number one, we’re not gonna say the first thing that comes to our mind, we’re gonna be quick to listen. That means we’re not gonna say the first thing that comes to our mind even if it’s good, even if it’s right. We’re not gonna say it. We’re gonna wait. Wait, right? And because your first draft thought of what to say might turn out three minutes from now to have been completely misguided. So you wait, and you wait, and you’re listening. It’s as if you’re with a person and you believe God is with you both, fine with His word and His providence with you, all creation declaring His glory, everything is alive to his presence and you’re listening. Therefore, put away filthiness, rampant wickedness, receive with meekness the implanted word. In your quietness, not saying your first thoughts, not venting even your strongest emotions, anger, but waiting, what are you doing? You are as a community, a listening community, sorting out, filtering, all right. What of the stuff that I’m thinking and feeling is filthy, wicked, in contrast to receiving the implanted word, sorting that out. So that then I can speak from there and not only speak but do. It says doers of the word. We just have to slow down our speaking. We have to come to believe that silences that are filled with beholding are equally as important as our sentences in ministry and with each other.
There are times when you’re parenting a teenage, when our kids who are teenagers, whether we’re in blended families or families that are intact, we’re single parents or we’re, in all the beauty and mess of all those things, some of the hardest things to do is to wait. It’s just hard. ‘Cause the bedroom might be right across the hall or within texting different distance. And you know how it goes? Things speed up. And so I, I am sure that I need to have this talk with one of my kids ’cause I know it’s been a long time only to realize it was wasn’t even 24 hours ago that I brought this thing up. Now here I am bringing it up again ’cause we’re just right across the hall or we’re just right across town. And then 24 hours later it’s still not fixed. More words, it’s still not fixed. Anger, fix it. I’ll throw everything I got, it’s like we’re in battle and I don’t have a gun, I’ll pick up a pot, a pen, anything I can find and I throw it, fix it. There’s just folly on display, words been multiplied. It’s a remarkable and a unnervingly gracious thing to think to yourself, all right, I just talked about this two hours ago, I’m ready to talk again. I need to wait about six more weeks or months. Beholding, listening. Now in order to do this, a couple of things has to happen to be listening talkers. One, we have to slow down our emails, okay? We have to slow down our emails to be a listening caregiver. Don’t take the bait. Someone send you an email, the heading says concerned. First line is no offense but, next line is can’t believe you are this and that, can I tell you, I read no further. I don’t read any further, not anymore ’cause that is not the way a lover of Christ communicates and I don’t have to pretend otherwise. I’m calling you straight. I stop with that email. I will either send that to a team or I will 24 hours later send a sentence. Dear friend, I received your email. I only read the first two sentences. We should talk, Zack. Or I’ll put my little Christian stuff in there, grace upon grace, Zack. Why? ‘Cause if I read all that, I’m just reading you at your worst. If you love me and I love you, you’ll regret that you wrote it like that. And if you are my enemy, I don’t need to spend my time with you at your worst. That sound mean to you? Send a note, invitation, talk. Why wait 24 hours? Because if I read that send an email right back, guess what happens? They read it, email right back, now there it goes, multiplying words, folly. Nothing good comes of it. I’m reacting, spew in the first thing that I think, I’m no longer quick to listen. I am quick to speak man, I’m all caps and anger and none of that will bring about the kingdom but who cares? Sometimes I wait 48 hours, sometimes 72, sometimes a week. Out of silent treatment punishment? Nope. Nope. I have to get through every imaginary conversation before I can hope to respond you wisely.
D. Don’t get distracted by imaginary conversations.
You know what imaginary conversations are. Here’s an example from Psalm 55:12-14. It was not an enemy who taunts me, David says, then I could bear it. It is not an adversary who deals insolent with me, then I could hide from him. Notice that’s third person language, he’s talking to God about this person over here. Now suddenly he shifts as if he’s talking directly face to face with the friend who hurt him. But it is you, a man, my equal, my companion, my familiar friend, we used to take sweet counsel together within God’s house we walked in the throng. He’s talking as if his friend is right there, but he’s not. Do you do this? So do I. It starts out as a prayer, email came, concern, you’re this and that, blah, blah, blah. God, please have mercy on this folk, this person, please help me to see whatever I need to see, whatever is true about they’re trying to tell me about. And how could you write that to me? I was at your wedding. Here’s what I would tell you. And now, now, I’m away from prayer, I’m in imaginary conversation land as if the person is actually there and what I’m doing is winning. And you know what is hard? Some of you, some of you, your temperament is such that after you have that conversation, you think you actually had it. I’m not kidding, you think you actually had it. I think I actually had it and then, and then someone’s trying to mediate a conversation between you and another person and you’re saying they said this and that and that person’s dumbfounded. I don’t ever remember saying that. And the mediator’s trying to sort it out it’s because there’s a lot of imaginary conversations going on where we move from prayer casting our anxieties and pains upon the Lord to having it out in our mind. I cannot respond to you and your criticism until I’ve worked through all my imaginary conversations with you, you see. Until I fought to get back to prayer for you. And I hope you will take the time to do the same if I should write to you not out of my best but out of my worst. And then you too will give a little bit of time and not take the bait and all that will make me mad ’cause I want you to respond just like that. I want you, there it is my precious, I want. And in that there’s no beholding, there’s no listening as those who were taught, there’s no speaking as those who’d been taught by God. There’s no word to sustain the weary particularly with texts, do not respond. If you start noveling on a text, I feel hip ’cause young people use that word, if you start noveling on a text which means you’re just, I mean you’re just writing a book, erase it. And if you receive a text that says, wait six hours before you text back. Not out of silent treatment, not out of punishment. Number one, that person doesn’t need you right now actually, they don’t need your response, they need God. And secondly, you need God before you can respond well.
3. Two Kinds of Listening
A. Recognizing and Discerning.
All of this is slowness to speak, quickness to listen, having the tongue of the one who’s been taught with the Lord. And we listen as those who’ve heard, those who’ve been taught. Jesus said he who has ears to hear let him hear, ain’t that interesting? There’s two kinds of hearing. To hear with the ears is to recognize, to hear with understanding is to discern. To hear with the ear requires only that one’s eardrums work, to hear so as to understand requires that one’s soul remain attentive and receptive to the goings on in another person. To hear with the ear, one only need to nod the head, shuffle the voice and the mm-hmm and a-ha. But to hear truly however, one must ready herself to experience the life of another and from that experience to understand. To hear with the ear only is to categorize, explain, move on. To truly hear is to name the nuance, to understand the meanings, to separate out what is consistent from what is not and to let what is mysterious or confounding remain for another day. To hear with the ear only is to quote the bible, to hear truly is to bend one’s life toward the meaning of the quote in real time with that person in Jesus. By the way, I know this wind is just remarkable. I was just taking of Martyn Lloyd Jones preaching as the bombs fell in England. And I figured well if he could keep preaching while the bomb were falling, we could keep going with the wind. Strange what we think about.
4. Conclusion
A. The rhythm of prayer
Let’s conclude this way, we’ve talked about this quiet tongue as those whose been taught to sustain the weary, beholding God as He comes in slowing down, practical silly but real examples, imaginary conversations, working them through back to prayer before the Lord so that we can love our neighbor by means of our speech. Now practically, how do we begin to do that? It’s this rhythm he says morning by morning, He awakens me. Now we’re prone to immediately think of a quiet time, I need to make sure I have 10 minutes every morning. What I wanna remind you of is this is a 24 hour rhythm, morning by morning, morning by morning. It’s 24 hour rhythm, one day at a time. Jesus said each day has enough for its own, right? So one of the things that’s becoming important to me besides a full day of rest once a week is four potions of a day. A morning by morning, morning through, day afternoon through the evening, through the night watches back to morning. Through the afternoon, through the evening, through the night, watches back to morning. And at this rhythm in our life, think about it in this way, let’s imagine that the morning starts around six a.m. and ends around noon. And the night watches end at around 5:59 a.m. and start after midnight. And the evening picks up I don’t know, six p.m., the afternoon starts around noon. So instead of 24 continuous spaces on your calendar to appointment for the day, it’s actually broken up into four so that those who would pray morning, noon, and evening and those who would be up in the night watches with the Lord. If we had time, we would look at a robust teaching about this. I’m only hinting at it to you now. That when the morning begins, you wake up and you say you behold God, the night watches have ended. You’re still with me and I’m still with You, thank You. You gotta answer the morning, joy comes in the morning, weeping lasts for a night. You’re answering the morning, noon is promise grace. You get to about 11:45, you’re getting in your car to go to a lunch appointment and you turn the radio off, you turn off the Podcast even if it’s me you’re listening to. You turn it off and you do this, for me it’s three Cs so I can remember. Consolations, cares, and carnalities, that’s just for me to help me remember. It’s 11:45, noon is about to start, the morning is coming to an end, I think for a moment, Lord were there any consolations, any beautiful little gifts you gave to sustain my soul today, this morning, what was it? And now I’m thinking through to find little flowers from the morning that I can put in the vase and give thanks. And then I’m thinking about carnalities, was there any temptation Lord, something coming at me this morning, some temptation at me this morning? So I can look to Christ and begin the work of resisting that now while it’s still morning. And then I’m thinking about my cares, was there any cares from this morning? Yeah, something’s bothering me, this way it works for me, something’s bothering me, I don’t know what it is, I have to start thinking, what is bothering me? What is it, ah nine o’clock now, 10, what was 11:45? Eight o’clock, that email, concerned. I’m still there, it’s 11:45, I’m still there. I’m about to enter the afternoon. The afternoon requires wisdom, the afternoon is when you have happy hour. The afternoon in which night sense are introduced, the afternoon is the heat of the day, the afternoon is when you’re ready to finish work at two o’clock and you got three more hours to go. The afternoon is what requires perseverance. I’m about to enter the afternoon, I’m still at eight a.m., concerned. I cast that care upon the Lord for He cares for me. Now you and I meet at lunch. Yeah, it’s you and me, we meet at lunch, you’re the appointment I’m coming to see. You’re Paul, I’m Titus. Go through the afternoon, starting to go home, afternoon is coming to an end, evening hospitality is about to begin, that’s when you make dinner, that’s when you have people over, that’s when you have small group, that’s when you have a lot of bible studies. That’s when you start showing hospitality, that’s when kids come home, all that kind of stuff. And right before walking the door, you see just a few minutes, I need to say the afternoon, Lord, any cares> Any consolations? Little flowers, put it in the vase. Any carnality, something trying to take me down.
Why do you pray morning, evening, night like that, why? Because otherwise, I am not coming from a posture of having been taught when I meet with you at lunch. I’m bringing my unmeditated agitation from another person’s broken attempt to love me. I have that in me as you are talking and we are meeting. Now, I bring that into our meeting, who knows what that goes like? We go into our afternoon, by the time I get home, I bring all that unmeditated day having not behold, having not given thanks, having not fought any temptation, having not cast my cares and I bring that home. Have you ever notice that a lot people you serve, they fight at dinner time? Particularly if it’s when everyone comes back home. Well, have you ever noticed that in your own life? Dinnertime, bedtime, all that stuff comes in there. Now it builds up day upon day of unmeditated, unprayed through imaginary conversations today without gratitude, without gratitude. Without all the little flowers that could have been in the vase to give thanks for God. And we bring that into each other and there’s just no way I would have a word that could sustain you and your weariness ’cause I don’t have it myself. But in reverse, when that starts to happen in your life what happens is day upon day starts to slow down, not your circumstances but you internally start to slow down internally everything else is still a whirlwind but internally because you’ve just paused. And if you’re up in the night watches like a bell, and curly anxious fearful men like me and you’re up in the night watches and you’re wondering if you’re alone, it’s actually the nightwatchers or the time of solitude most often. Those are the most often times of quiet times in the Psalms if you will. When up in the night, nightwatchers looking to the Lord, wondering if anyone’s there then you remember there was in the nightwatchers when they were at the oars and He came walking on the water and He said peace, don’t be afraid. And they said it’s a ghost and He said no it’s Me. And they’re like ahh the Lord’s up and the night watches with me ’cause I’m rowing at the oars and I feel like the whole rest of the world is asleep and doesn’t care. So when the morning comes, I can enter it. And if you’re my breakfast appointment, you’ll be glad ’cause there’ll be an interface to whatever you’re working out and we’re sitting with that I couldn’t just work up in the morning, I just couldn’t make that happen, it becomes day upon day. So in my own personal experience when I’m in a four portions of the day rhythm and a one day Sabbath, when that’s happening then my inner life is slow, I am slow to speak, I’m able to give full attentiveness to you sitting in front of me and God with you, looking to Him with you and you feel as though you’ve been seen and heard and known. When I’m not in that rhythm, I don’t even know what’s gonna happen. ‘Cause it gradually deteriorates and my inward pace starts to speed, speed up, speed up. And it’s difficult for me to offer any kind of rest ’cause I don’t have them. Those of us who don’t have rest have a Savior. He says come even right now, come He will give us rest. Those of us who’ve shattered our Sabbath and have never heard of or anything with the four portions, He’s been with us all along, He’s with you now. I will lead you into this company of the thought so that you speak morning by morning and you hear as one that’s been taught. And then if you’re Titus sitting with Paul, gold, beauty, ordinary powerhouse of grace right there at Starbucks. And we can’t quite explain it. It’s just that it was sort of like our words became secondary and He was present and primary. And we went away not with our circumstances changed but with a new glimpse of Him that gets us through. We become those with the word, we’ve been sustained. Let’s pray. Lord, we thank You very much for Your kindness even if I speak about few words, I’ve used a lot of words to do it. And we ask that in that irony somehow, You would slow down our soul and we could hear You and pay attention and behold You in the providences of our life according to Your word for the sake of others. That You would deliver us from evil for the times that we’ve multiplied words to try to fix Your control when really what we needed was the uncomfortable quiet of waiting upon You. We thank You for fresh start in a new day restrict]