Keep Quiet and Let God Carry On by Rose McCormick Brandon

If I had to reduce 2019 to one lesson learned it would be this: Keep quiet, pray, and wait for God to work.

I wanted badly to say something to fix a situation. Wise sage that I am, I composed more than one approach in my mind. I prayed. What message did the Lord have for me? Keep quiet. Pray only. This important message should be shouted in capitals.

Psalm 27:14 says, “Be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord.” 

It takes courage to keep quiet. And patience to wait for God to answer our prayers. I like the old word for patience – longsuffering – that word encapsulates how difficult it is to exercise patience.

When we interfere with God’s work we end up saying things we shouldn’t and things we can’t take back. We cause hurt feelings and divisions that in some cases take decades to heal.

With the ability to express ourselves instantly in a few keystrokes, discretion and waiting for God, has taken a beating. Every day we observe people fired up over a disagreement. Like soldiers with guns cocked, they shoot off a tweet, an email or a Facebook post. It’s not uncommon for people to discover within a few minutes that the event that fuelled their rage happened a decade ago, or perhaps not at all. Seldom does the blasting writer have all the details.

The desire to get others to think as we do and to act as we do is strong. We see ourselves as wise and others who think differently as fools. 

Correcting people is risky business. Few are holy enough (or kind enough) to pull it off.

In 2020, I want to become more proficient in the practice of discretion. It doesn’t mean I can’t have opinions, but my opinions, and the way I express them, must not push people away from God, or insult them.

The situation I wanted to remedy in an instant took God about a year and a half to fix. Often I struggled to keep a lid on my words. The Lord planned it that way to give me much-needed experience in waiting on Him.

I have a long way to go and much to learn in following Christ. I expect Him to teach me more about waiting in 2020. 

Rose McCormick Brandon writes about personal experiences, her faith and the children who came to Canada as immigrants, the British Home Children. She contributes to publications in Canada, the U.S. and Australia and is the author of Promises of Home - Stories of Canada's British Home Children and One Good Word Makes all the Difference. Find her faith writings at her blog, Listening to my Hair Grow.