As people, our tendency is to hold onto things that are meaningful and memorable to us in our lives. One of those things for me is my baseball glove from my senior year in high school; I won’t tell you how old that glove is!  One of the interesting things about that glove, apart from its age, is what you’ll find on the inside if you were to look at it. Written on each “finger” on the inside of the glove is a letter, starting with the thumb – specifically the letters “T”, “H”, “I”, “N”, and “K.”  In case you can’t figure it out, that spells out the word “THINK” and I wrote those letters on the fingers of my glove for a purpose. As a middle infielder, I trained myself to look inside my glove before every pitch and, seeing those letters, I would be reminded to think through the current game situation – who was up to bat and were they a right-handed or left-handed hitter, how many outs there were, how many runners were on base and which bases were occupied, if the runner on first base steals second who would cover the base, how was I to react if the hitter squares to bunt, and so on. Doing this helped me prepare beforehand for what might occur once the pitch was thrown and, therefore, not be caught off-guard, causing me to make split decisions without enough time to fully think through what my actions should be in relation to what was happening in the moment.

In the Book of Psalms, poetic songs unto the Lord, there is a word used 71 times (as well as 3 more times in the Book of Habakkuk) that, like the letters written inside my ball glove, is equally insightful and instructional – it is the word “Selah.” A Hebrew word, it is a musical instruction that denotes a rest or pause for the express purpose of reflecting on the verse(s) just sung (or read). We could literally say it means to “rest and reflect; pause and ponder” or, in a more modern vernacular, “stop and think.” In seeing, reading, or hearing that word an individual was being instructed to meditate on what had just been communicated, and primarily on the Lord in reference to what was put forth.

Increasingly, one of the biggest issues that causes difficulty in living the Christian life, or even life in general for those who do not profess Christ, is the lack of – are you ready for it? – THINKING. How often do we stop and think about life; what is life really all about, what is going on in our lives and in the lives of those around us, is there more to life than just the day to day routine, what will be the outcome if I make this decision to do _____________ (fill in the blank)? I wonder how many problems, difficulties, and wrong decisions could be avoided if we would simply cultivate the habit of Selah, the habit of stopping and thinking. Even more so, how many better decisions could be made, in contrast to past decisions, if we just pause and ponder the circumstance or situation or decision we are confronted with prior to making them. I shudder to reflect on my own life and realize how not stopping long enough to think through things played itself out in ways that were good for me as well as others and, more importantly, not glorifying of the Lord.

More and more, daily, the Lord challenges me to be a person of reflection – to rest and reflect, pause and ponder, stop and think… to be a person of Selah. The Lord has called us as believers to be more than just spectators in the unfolding drama called life, He has called us to be participants. It is of critical importance for us to realize, especially in the times we find ourselves in, that to participate in a way that glorifies Christ requires us to be critical thinkers, to as Ephesians 5:15 says, be those who “walk circumspectly.” Cultivating the habit of Selah in our life will prepare us to be ready “in and out of season” to properly respond to what life brings our way and, more to the point, prepare and enable us to be those who bring hope to a hopeless world, love to an unloving world, and truth to a world that has bought into so many lies. In so doing, we will be those who “redeem the time” that foolish living, living an unthinking life, wastes. We need to be people who are defined as those who “muse,” which by definition means “to become absorbed in thought; especially: to think about something carefully and thoroughly,” in a world that is obsessed with being people who “amuse” – which by definition means to not think! (Note: the letter A is a negating prefix when added to the beginning of a word… ponder that when you look at this world that is centered on amusing – why, do you suppose, that would be?)

The musings in this blog will journal what the Lord reveals as I hold my life and thoughts up to His glorious inspection and direction – as I seek to live the “Selah” life. I encourage you to come along for the ride – join me in being a person who swims against the flow and tide of this world, to be a person of reflection, and be part of a group of people who are defined by “Selah” and not by the opposite.

Rest and reflect; pause and ponder; stop and think…   s.