A great quiet has fallen over my soul. It’s not the shock of silence, for I experienced that a couple of years ago when my spirit stood at the portal of heaven, gasping for air. At that time, my prayers foamed up from the depths of my soul in fragments and groans, unexpressed but painful. And it’s not the bleak hopelessness that lay over me for the dark months when a black barrier separated me from every expectation. Future good looked impossible during those days.
During that period of silence, my heart turned toward hatred, and I was surprised at the intensity of my anger. I’d always prided myself on my inability to hold a grudge, but wounded with resentment, everything changed. Months multiplied into more, and I lashed out toward the innocent and said things I now regret.
After years of uttering all the prayers and crying all the tears, a strange repose has settled upon me. My current spirit hush is different from all that preceded it. Quieter than the stormy periods of shock, trauma, and resentment, my present state is one of stillness. The dictates of self-made religion have been jettisoned away by suffering.
In this quiet, I heard Jesus say,
“Blessed are the poor in spirit” (Matthew 5:3).
With this feeble pen, I’m struggling to describe what so many of you are also experiencing: tremors of the soul. You, too, have known a shaking in your ecclesiastical foundations. When the core of our being undergoes a violent upheaval, the spiritual tick-boxes are also shaken. If our religious base has rested on perfect doctrine and good works, then it is inevitable that our Father will rattle this type of spirituality. He knows that only that which cannot be shaken need remain standing (Hebrews 12:27). “Only a few things are necessary, really only one” (Luke 10:42).
Rather than desiring our past religious state, we can glory in spiritual impoverishment. We don’t need to know all the answers, for we have a Live-in Solution. And when Jesus is all we have left, we discover that Jesus is enough. As Eugene Peterson translates, “You’re blessed when you’re at the end of your rope. With less of you, there is more of God and His rule” (Matthew 5:3 The Message).
I’m encouraged that our Father commends this destitution of soul. Not only does He pronounce endorsement upon such poverty of spirit, but He also gives us the gift of His Kingdom. “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven” (Matthew 5:3). We are exactly where He wants us to be: spiritually centered at the doorway of His Heavenly Realm. Here, our souls can rest peacefully and quietly. Let it be. Selah.