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Psalm 131 and Mark 4:35-41

Beyond distraction

Being a father of four kids I’ve learnt to work and study with all manner of household noise. But I do have my limits, particularly when the kids have gone mad with silliness and I’m on the phone. That’s when I politely tell the person to hang on and then ROAR for QUIET!!!!.

A guide to a calm soul

How many voices yell for your attention throughout the day. I’m talking about the voices of your desire. Things like wishing you could get married, wishing you weren’t married, wishing your kids would turn out right, wishing you had just a bit more money, wishing you could have a restful holiday, wishing work or school wasn’t so hard.

We live in a noisy world because our hearts are noisy. The Bible calls this noise and these wishes “the lust of the flesh.” A lust is a normal desire gone mad. For example you may want your kids to grow up right to be a good person who loves God. That is a normal desire given by God. However it can easily go mad and be transformed into a lust, something that you must have, something that you can’t do without

When your child is naughty do you go way over the top, are you like a KGB agent always on their case, exposing their every flaw, correcting their every wrong. Do you yell and rage at your child because they continue to disobey you? That is not God given, it is Lust.

Lust is deceptively common and we often expect God to fulfill it for us. We want health, a good job, to be popular, to be happy and not sad, to be able to retire, to have good friends. But all of these are voices which can yell at you for their attention, that poor anxiety into your life, that fill your heart with noise.

Today’s Psalm is about calming our hearts so that we are quiet on the inside. Not so much by ignoring the noise but by learning to hear one clear and true voice that comes from Christ’s lips. When we tune in to him then we will have peace.  the Rev

Sermon: Peace, Be Still

Bible Reading: Psalm 131

Exercises

• Share a normal desire that you think has gone mad in your life, be specific (v1)

• How have you tried to fulfil or satisfy the desire gone mad, be specific?

• What might the process of calming your soul look like, be specific (v2)?

• What changes will be evidenced if this calming process is successful (2b)?

• How will your trust in God benefit other people you have relationships with?

Prayer: Dear Lord forgive us for paying so much attention to the crying of our desires while largely ignoring your still small voice. Help us aim for what pleases you rather than what pushes our buttons. Enable us to give far more attention to people we relate to as we begin to spend a lot less energy on ourselves. May you grant to us the inner calm of a heart that has heard Christ say Peace, be still.