Dec. 12: Beholding Beauty in the Secret Sacred Place

Solomon’s Temple (overall and detail view). Gilded illuminated manuscript on vellum
Artist and Special Decorative Text Treatments: Donald Jackson. Scribe: Sue Hufton Hebrew Script: Izzy Pludwinksi. © 2010 The Saint John’s Bible, Saint John’s University, Collegeville, Minnesota, USA. Used with permission. All rights reserved.

“He Hideth My Soul” from the album Hymns of Hope. Performed by Don Moen, composed by Fanny Crosby.

Poetry:

“How to be a Poet”
by Wendell Berry

(to remind myself)

i

Make a place to sit down.
Sit down. Be quiet.
You must depend upon
affection, reading, knowledge,
skill—more of each
than you have—inspiration,
work, growing older, patience,
for patience joins time
to eternity. Any readers
who like your poems,
doubt their judgment.

ii

Breathe with unconditional breath
the unconditioned air.
Shun electric wire.
Communicate slowly. Live
a three-dimensioned life;
stay away from screens.
Stay away from anything
that obscures the place it is in.
There are no unsacred places;
there are only sacred places
and desecrated places.

iii

Accept what comes from silence.
Make the best you can of it.
Of the little words that come
out of the silence, like prayers
prayed back to the one who prays,
make a poem that does not disturb
the silence from which it came.

BEHOLDING BEAUTY IN THE SECRET SACRED PLACE

The Holy Spirit makes us into living temples, dwelling places of the Lord, through His own great goodness. When the storm comes, having found the quiet and still place already, being already founded upon the rock, you will have the quiet and secure place still.

“One thing I have desired of the Lord,” the psalmist says. He asks to see the Lord, to dwell with him. And then, in the Song, we hear the answer, “Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away!” God wants us to come to Him too. In fact, He is the very one who has given us this longing for Himself—we want Him because He wants us to want Him. Love calls out for love.

So how do we seek the Lord?

The spiritual discipline of silence and solitude is one of the best tools we have for seeking the Lord’s face. In my own life, I’ve found I had to start small. I’ve done things like driving in silence on an errand, not listening to anything, but turning my attention to Him. Or at least, thinking what I wanted to think about anyway, but consciously doing it with Him, thinking my thoughts in His presence.

I’ve tried to stay off screens on Sunday afternoons. I’ve spent time doing chores in silence, rather than listening to a podcast. I’ve taken up memorizing Scripture again, like I used to do when I was young—and oh! There’s something about having the Word not just in front of your eyes, but in your mind and heart, and there on the tip of your tongue. I’ve gone on retreats, away from the chatter of other people and noise—not often, but enough that it changed me.

None of this is done perfectly. So far from it! (If you know me, you know that’s true.) But the more space I make to spend with the Lord, the more space and time with Him I want.

In some ways, my mind and my heart are not nearly quiet enough yet. My hands are not yet as empty as they need to be, to receive all the good things that He wants to give me (a good measure, pressed down and flowing over).

We do these small little things, knowing that we have not cleared enough space in the fields of our hearts to grow so much as a small flower.

But in the insufficiency of our efforts, the Lord is at work, clearing space, so that even the enemies that we cannot discern are driven far from us (Deuteronomy 7:20). The Lord is weeding out the fields of our hearts and making them fertile ground.

Go into the secret place, go into the silent place. Start by doing what you can, and don’t worry right now about doing what you can’t. When you fall away, come back again. Anything you really want to do, you have to redo, always starting again, always coming back. That’s how it works when you’re a fallible creature. Start with ten minutes in the morning, and five minutes at night. Be quiet, and present yourself before the Lord, and ask to behold His beauty, to dwell in His presence.

Build on that. Keep going. If you get the merest taste of the cool, clear water of the river of God, nothing less will satisfy you.

In habitual time set apart in quiet with the Lord, you will have time to hear Him, to meditate on His Word, to repent and receive forgiveness, to be taught how to obey Him. And as Jesus said, the one who hears His words and does them is like a house founded upon a rock, that will not be destroyed in the day of trouble (Matthew 7:24–27).

Psalm 27 confirms this in its “therefore”: “for in the day of trouble” it says, “in the secret place of His tabernacle He shall hide me; He shall set me high upon a rock.”

And what will we find there? What will we find there, alone with the God who loves us?

I mean, I already gave it away in how I asked the question, and you already know the answer, but it is so good to hear it in the way that Fanny Crosby tells it to us:

He hideth my soul in the cleft of the rock
That shadows a dry, thirsty land;
He hideth my life in the depths of His love,
And covers me there with His hand.

When you seek the Lord, what you will find is Him—what you will find is love.

What you will find is Him who is love.

What you will find is Him who loves you.

Prayer:
O God, grant that we may desire you, and desiring you seek you, and seeking you find you, and finding you be satisfied in you forever.
Amen.
— Francis Xavier, as printed in The Book of Common Prayer of the ACNA

Jessica Snell
Biola Class of 2003
Writer and Editor

For more information about the artwork, music, and poetry selected for this day, please visit our website via the link in our bio.