Make it your goal to live a quiet life, minding your own business and working with your hands, just as we instructed you before. Then people who are not believers will respect the way you live, and you will not need to depend on others. 1 Thess 4:11-12 (NLT)
When I read this verse the other day, my first reaction was “What? Be quiet? Not make a sound? Keep my voice down, WHAT?”
I ‘m passionate about people having a voice, being heard, sharing their thoughts and ideas, speaking up for love and justice… I don’t live a quiet soundless life and at first, without thinking or reading beyond the initial words of this verse, I was a little incredulous about it. But as I looked into it, I discovered that it’s not talking about sound – it's not saying live a quiet mousy life where you keep your mouth shut and don’t make any waves – be seen and not heard. It's actually talking about the state of our hearts.
In the Message bible, it says “Stay calm; mind your own business; do your own job.”
The words “stay calm” hit me right between the eyes. I have a tendency towards the dramatic and the exaggerated (now they have it writing… hmmm)… haha! Staying calm has been something I've learned, and am learning still, through trial and error. Allowing the peace of God that lives above my realm of understanding to have its way in my heart – for it to be my hearts guard and umpire – is the ultimate position of calm; the peace in the storm, my anchor in swirling seas, the foundation of my soul in a shaken and rocky world.
It's not ‘quietness’ of voice, but rather the stillness of spirit that echoes the testimony of God’s grace and love across my life and into the ears and lives of those around me. The rejection of gossip and ‘busybody’ activities, using whatever I have in my hands and making the most of what I’ve been given, with thankful voice and calm heart – It’s these things that speak the greatness of God loud and clear. And it’s what makes my literal voice heard. The way you live can say more about you than the words that spill from your mouth. Let your life resound with the calm hope of Jesus and testify of the difference He makes in your world.
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