Pause
Stories
THE WONDER OF WORDS: BOOK 2
ONE-HUNDRED MORE WORDS AND PHRASES SHAPING HOW CHRISTIANS THINK AND LIVE
When Leonardo da Vinci was painting the scene of Jesus' last supper, on a dining room wall in a certain monastery, he often stood for hours before that wall, pondering his next move. Someone complained to him he wasn't working. Leonardo answered, "When I pause the longest, I make the most telling strokes with my brush." The word pause comes from the Greek verb "pauein," meaning to stop. A pause is a short period of inaction, a temporary stop. Someone has said, in music, "pauses are music in the making." There is a momentary rest leading to the production of music more lovely than before. The pause prepares those who are performing and those who are listening for the finer music.
Isn't it possible that the pauses in our lives - those periods of inactivity - may become music in the making? For instance, a period of illness makes us pause and rest awhile. Of course, God doesn't want people to be sick. Jesus made that abundantly clear. Yet, a period of sickness does give us the opportunity to pause and reflect on our priorities. A famous medical doctor, Sir James Crichton Browne, made this insightful comment: "We doctors, in the treatment of nervous diseases, are now constantly compelled to prescribe periods of rest. Some periods are, I think, only Sundays in arrears." How wise and good it is that God gave us one day in seven for worship and rest. How wise of us to observe it regularly!
Young people may resent the fact that disciplined school work makes them pause for awhile before they rush into adult living. Yet that pause can be music in the making! Interruptions make us pause. Though we may resent those interruptions, they can be pauses that jolt our schedules and send us spinning off in new and better directions. No wonder Jesus said to his friends: "Let us go off by ourselves to some place where we will be alone and you can rest awhile." (Mark 6:31)"
Isn't it possible that the pauses in our lives - those periods of inactivity - may become music in the making? For instance, a period of illness makes us pause and rest awhile. Of course, God doesn't want people to be sick. Jesus made that abundantly clear. Yet, a period of sickness does give us the opportunity to pause and reflect on our priorities. A famous medical doctor, Sir James Crichton Browne, made this insightful comment: "We doctors, in the treatment of nervous diseases, are now constantly compelled to prescribe periods of rest. Some periods are, I think, only Sundays in arrears." How wise and good it is that God gave us one day in seven for worship and rest. How wise of us to observe it regularly!
Young people may resent the fact that disciplined school work makes them pause for awhile before they rush into adult living. Yet that pause can be music in the making! Interruptions make us pause. Though we may resent those interruptions, they can be pauses that jolt our schedules and send us spinning off in new and better directions. No wonder Jesus said to his friends: "Let us go off by ourselves to some place where we will be alone and you can rest awhile." (Mark 6:31)"
