Some Things to Learn
The rest of verse one of that song from yesterday —
Open my eyes, that I may see
glimpses of truth thou hast for me;
place in my hands the wonderful key
that shall unclasp and set me free.
Silently now I wait for thee,
ready, my God, thy will to see.
Open my eyes, illumine me, Spirit divine!
I hate to wait. You, too?
And if you know me in real life, not just here, you know that I’m seldom described as being silent. (Have me tell you sometime about how I crashed into The Academy for Spiritual Formation about like a bulldozer into a house of cards.)
And so then there’s this line in this hymn: Silently now I wait for thee.
In our culture, we abhor silence. Even in church services, we think we need to have music fill the silence spaces.
And we won’t tolerate waiting. If a screen loads slowly on our devices, we give up and click on something else.
And so then there’s this line from our Bibles: Wait for the Lord. (Psalm 27:14)
Hmmmm.
Sound like some of us, and yes that’s us as in First Person Plural, have some things to learn.
joescheets 
Glad you made it first person plural as I was about to raise my hand! I always squirmed at the silence of the moment of silence when I was a kid — it was intolerably long. I now realize that when I was a kid, I had no idea how horribly long 60 seconds really is!! As a lay speaker, I would always put a watch on the pulpit in front of me — something I watched preachers do when I was growing up. When we came to that moment of silence, I let the whole moment pass. About 20 seconds in, even in little country churches with 27 attendees, I could sense the natives getting restless. I got a couple of complaints later that I shouldn’t have had a moment of silence that was probably almost two minutes — they weren’t holding a watch I’ll bet. Impatience is worse as an adult than it ever was for me as a child. Still love that hymn! Definitely one they shouldn’t have removed the “Amen.” from!!
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