02 THE THOUGHTFUL MOOD
02 THE THOUGHTFUL MOOD The next one we mention is the thoughtful mood. You remember the Psalmist said in the 39th Psalm, 3rd verse, "While I was musing the fire burned." I heard a young brother say once that he had just discovered the interpretation of that after having studied very hard for years and this was his interpretation:-- that David was seated by the open fire and fell asleep and when he awoke the fire had all burned out. That was both interesting and amusing to me because I had always supposed that David meant that while he was meditating upon God’s goodness his heart grew hot and then he said, "I spake with my tongue."
They who are to be deep Christians, must be thoughtful Christians. We must take time to get along and be thoughtful. There is a time to be stirred in our thinking as well as in our heart. If we are to fill up we must shut up. You must, if you would be deep Christians, sometimes be hushed. There is a silence as necessary for the soul as the moments of triumph and shouting in the great congregation.
One of the reasons we have no more great saints today is we have not time to grow them. We jump out of bed at the sound of the alarm clock, swallow some breakfast food, run all day, bolt to our lunch, hurry to supper, or dinner, at six o’clock, change clothes and off again for some engagement. Nobody can become a deep Christian that way. A soul needs its moments of meditation as much as the moments of shouting, and more.
There must be an observatory in your soul into which you often retire. If the governor is at your home, you will beg his pardon and retire to your own solitude alone with God. If you cannot physically get alone, you must learn that the Holy Ghost wants to shut you up sometimes until you do not hear what the crowd says, nor pay any attention to what they do.
I have before now, been so engaged by the Spirit in a thoughtful mood that on one occasion when Brother Yates, at the end of the third stanza of a song, asked me how I liked it, I had not heard it -- I did not know they had sung. Shut up with Him. Alone with Him in the midst of a crowd. Meditate until your heart burns. A woman came to Brother [Bud] Robinson and said, "I don’t understand. I seem to have leaked out in my experience." He, said, "That is easy to explain. You keep your mouth open too much." She thanked him and he said, "You are welcome."
It is impossible to pour a barrel full of water if there is an open bunghole at the other end of the barrel. You can talk about holiness, until you get as empty as a last year’s bird’s nest. God wants you sometimes to shut up, even the best folks, and hold the floods within you until your soul swells with the sense of God.
I do not know why, I have naturally these moody times. I love to go in the twilight and be alone -- that pensive hour between the sun’s radiant glory and the quiet songs of the night. I think it is because at that time Adam walked with God in the garden in the old trysting place and we have never been content without walking with Him again. There come times in your life when He shuts you up. And then, do not disobey Him, for the value of your soul.
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