Lead, Kindly Light

You never were my strong suit, and in all honesty, I’m not sure I have ever laid out a welcome mat for you.

I found you too unfashionable, too staid in all your calm solitude and vanilla peace. I found you too inert, and thus incompatible with my life and schedule, which is (in?)famous in my social circle for its constant movement and happening. I found you too unstructured; one never knows what to expect with you, and your unpredictability diametrically opposes my almost addictive affinity for control. I found you too slow for my fast-paced life; at times I scurry, and at other times I hurry, but you… I felt as impatient toward you as so many men feel toward their high-heeled female companions. And I found you too unproductive; how many times have I inwardly and ignorantly scoffed, what does quietude ever accomplish? 

I kept you at bay for much of my life; sure, I reached out for you intermittently, when I couldn’t hold out any longer and my spirit cried out for rest. But I never really liked you much. Still, you were so faithfully present every time, and lingered as long as I’d let you stay. But it was never long before I sent you on your way.

You came back recently – again, because I needed you. I broke down and let you in when you gently arrived at my door, sent — no doubt — by my heavenly Father who knew you could help heal me. I grudgingly let you enter, but only because I was too weak to protest. This time you remained.

And in the past month you have debunked every myth I ever believed about you. You have toppled each excuse I ever created, and you have given me so many reasons to like you. And I do, finally. I like you. I enjoy your presence, and I am already hoping that somehow you and I can stay close friends in the years to come — in my life to come.

The truth that I’ve discovered about you is that you’re not unfashionable, inert, unpredictable (in a bad way), or slow. And you are anything but unproductive.

In you, in quietude, there is space. But it’s not empty space — it’s meaningful space in which there is enough calm and sufficient stillness to approach God, soul to deity, and just be.

In quietude there is the precious commodity of time. Time to pray more deeply, about more things. To seek wisdom, persistently, in a meaningful way. To listen for God’s voice. To look for His guidance. To enjoy His presence. There is nothing boring about approaching the throne of God, and creating time — more time — to sit at His feet and pour out everything, in detail, with every last parenthetical and tangent included.

Quietude looks like inertia, but it is more stunningly dynamic than my whirlwind schedule ever could be. In hopping from appointment to appointment, from meeting to meeting, and in checking tasks off an endless list of daily to-dos, time often does no more than tick and then drain away.

Quietude, in contrast, stirs up the waters of the day – it is majestic in its power to surge and swell the soul. Each close encounter with God, which is greatly enabled through quietude, is a life-inspiring celebration. In that mysterious way, quietude slakes the thirsty soul by bringing it to the River of Life to drink and be satisfied. Nothing could be more productive.

On the outside, life keeps going. You’re not the loner I thought you were; you have demonstrated to me that I can still keep moving with the rest of my life (and my hectic schedule) — for I know that my role in the Kingdom of heaven requires many hours of work. Yet you are still here with me at all times, and I am amazed at how your presence actually enables me to do the rest of my life better, with greater peace, and with a quieter but unfailingly genuine joy.

You never were my strong suit. And even this time around, you came to me not by my own choosing, but by circumstance. I don’t deserve much of anything, but at least credit this to my account: this time, I choose to let you stay. I invite you to stay.