He was oppressed and afflicted,
yet he did not open his mouth;
he was led like a lamb to the slaughter,
and as a sheep before her shearers is silent,
so he did not open his mouth.Isaiah 53:7
How often do you open your mouth when you are oppressed and afflicted? How often do you defend yourself?
I was reading The Kite Runner today and the main character spent some time contemplating the eyes of a lamb about to be slaughtered. It isn't afraid, it isn't resentful. It is calm and accepting. What an odd feeling to possess when you have a knife at your throat. 'It's almost as if the lamb has a sense of the higher purpose,' or somesuch, he wrote.
"God and the devil have one thing in common: they're both trying to kill you." But God has a higher order in mind: infusing the likeness of his Son into you. Preparing you for the inheritance that He has for you.
A challenge today: be silent in your afflictions. Don't complain. Don't defend yourself. Don't run from God, because he's the one with your best intentions in mind.
(This is the rough draft, but I wanted to post something. I'll edit it when I have time.)
2 comments:
I don't really think you should edit. I just read it and found it to be very powerful. Evocative. An all-day-thinker.
Good insight.
Thanks for the feedback! I thought it perhaps a touch morbid and wanted to inject a bit more of my usual agenda: live every single moment in God's presence, don't hide or harden your heart because he is good! (Maybe if I repeat it enough I'll start to do it! Ha.)
Coincidentally, that was the subject of that excellent sermon on CD that you gave me. Matt and I listened in the car and it spurred quite a bit of thought and note-taking on my part.
So I guess I'll be returning to that angle soon enough...
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