Silent Time

Do you know someone who is talking all the day long?

It might be annoying if another person continually talks.

But not so with the Lord. God also continually tries to talk to us, but not in an annoying way at all. His words are words of real wisdom and offer a blessed, fulfilled life with joy and hope to all who listen to him. The father in heaven is full of love and mercy and he has the best intentions for everybody.

What do you think about God?

Do you think of him in human terms?

Some people even think they could judge the eternal creator God, as if they had more knowledge or power than him.

Daniel knew that God deserves more honour than any human or thing. The father in heaven controls the times and the seasons. It is him who gives wisdom and understanding.

Supposed you had been seriously sick and someone – e.g. a good doctor – intervened with a major surgery and then guided you and instructed you well how to treat your body so that you got healed – would you not be joyful and thankful towards that person?

If someone is shut in, that often has to do with force and wrongdoing, for example if someone acted against the laws. Similarly, if someone is shut out by people or by other forces.

But that is not what the Lord wants for our lives, he wants to help us and finally to give us freedom. The eternal, almighty, merciful God holds the ultimate keys in his hands.

Freedom – what would you like to be free of?

God wants us to have freedom. He could have created us like puppets, but he created us humans with a free will.

We often take away our own freedom by either putting us into chains of wrongdoing, sin and devil. Or – by contrast – we take away our own freedom by putting ourselves into the chains of rules and by trying to obtain salvation by our own good deeds and personal accomplishments.

God offers real freedom from all that.

Water is necessary for life – we become aware of it especially in dry places like when walking through a desert.

Not only does our body need physical water to drink, also our soul needs water, even if we are not aware of it, our soul needs the holy spirit. We become aware of it especially in “dry phases of life”, when burdens make us feel like walking through a desert.

We all look forward to better times. But what do we do in order to achieve it? Do we only pursue fun and pleasures in order to seek short term distraction from the troubles of life? Or take also steps towards lasting, eternal joy?

As humans we naturally want to go upwards, to gain honour and favour with people or to accumulate more possessions and so on.

Jesus did the opposite, he went downwards – in order to help us!

What do you do, if you have too many things to do, a long list of tasks, and there is not enough time?

A clever person will set priorities and focus on the most important things.

That is a useful principle.

Yet in the eyes of the Lord, sometimes other things are more important than from our point of view.

What do you reply if someone says “it does not matter which religion one follows”?

Many people imply that it is more important to do good deeds.

And most religions claim that the major point is the effort of a person.

But God does not judge us based on our accomplishments.

Rather in his mercy he sent his son Jesus into this world, who washed the feet of the disciples. He offers all that is necessary for free to everyone pesonally. And if we understand how tremendously big that gift from God is, then in thankfulness we will forward the love of God to others and in that sense do good, not in order to earn salvation but in praise of the Lord.