The Quiet Man

My heart is not proud, O Lord,
my eyes are not haughty;
I do not concern myself with great matters
or things too wonderful for me.
But I have stilled and quieted my soul;
like a weaned child with its mother,
like a weaned child is my soul within me.
O Israel, put your hope in the Lord
both now and forevermore.

Psalm 131

I have discovered that all human evil comes from this, man’s being unable to sit still in a room. —BLAISE PASCAL

A fishing buddy of mine recently passed on to me a slim volume entitled Fishin’ Jimmy. It was written in 1889 by New Englander Anne Trumbull Slosson.

It’s about a man who lived in Franconia, that little valley in New Hampshire made famous by Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Great Stone Face. Fishin’ Jimmy was an angler who fly-fished the streams and ponds of that region for over half a century. I was immediately intrigued by the story, because some years ago Carolyn and I camped in Franconia Notch, and I fished those very streams.

Fishin’ Jimmy was a genial, kindly, accessible man, a lover of men and women, boys and girls, a friend of publicans and sinners. He was a simple man with a deep faith who walked with God in the quietness of his own soul.

One thing troubled Jimmy, however. He wanted to become a “fisher of men.” That was what the Great Teacher had promised those first fishermen who left their boats to follow him.

“I allers try to think that ’t was me in that boat when he come along,” Jimmy muses. “I’d make b’l’eve that it was out on Streeter’s Pond, an’ I was settin’ in the boat, fixin’ my lan’in’ net, when I see him on the shore. I think mebbe I’m that James—for that’s my given name, ye know, though they allers call me Jimmy—an’ then I hear him callin’ me, ‘James, James.’ I can hear him jest plain sometimes, when the wind’s blowin’ in the trees, an’ I jest ache to up an’ foller him. But says he, ‘I’ll make ye a fisher o’men,’ an’ he ain’t done it. I’m waitin’; mebbe he’ll larn me some day.”

What Fishin’ Jimmy did not know is that the Great Teacher had already “larned” him. Jimmy had walked a long time with Jesus and God’s gracious ways had rubbed off on him. Fishin’ Jimmy had become a center of peace, a man who touched lives profoundly wherever he went, who left behind the unforgettable fragrance of Christ.

David speaks of those like Jimmy who “live quietly” and yet deeply (Psalm 35:20). In every age God has his men who have retired from life’s noise and confusion, have withdrawn from its ambitions and jealousies, and have entered into the secret of a life that is hidden in God.

This doesn’t mean that these men necessarily escape from life’s dangers and dilemmas, but it does mean they have the ability to live with tranquility in the midst of them. Though much trouble may remain, confusion, apprehension, instability, and despair have begun to dwindle away. These are the “quiet men” who show poise under pressure, who are unshaken by life’s alarms and who radiate wisdom and peace wherever they go.

Content to be but little known,
Content to wander on alone;
Here—hidden inwardly in Thee;
Then—light in Thine own light to be.
—JESSE PENN LEWIS

Ordinary men, unfamiliar with the hidden depths of God, necessarily live busy, fussy, ambitious, care-ridden lives. They’re always fretful, always restless, always looking for that illusive “something more.”

But those who have learned to turn their energies toward God can be calm in the hustle and bustle of the marketplace as well as the tedium and weariness of the commonplace, quiet in the midst of life’s homeliest duties and excessive demands.

F. B. Meyer says that most of us are like folks living in a one-room house located too close to the street. There’s no way to get away from the noise and commotion outside. But we can build a soundproof room within and make it our dwelling place—a secret chamber to ponder God’s word and talk things over with him.

“We fill our little space,” Meyer says, “we get our daily bread and are content; we enjoy natural and simple pleasures; we do not strive, nor cry, nor cause our voice to be heard in the street; we pass through the world, with noise-less tread, dropping a blessing on all we meet.”

It’s in that quiet place that we learn peace and bring that peace out to others. George MacDonald, that wise, old Scot, put it this way: “There is a chamber—a chamber in God himself which none can enter but the one, the individual, the particular man. Out of which chamber that man has to bring revelation and strength for his brethren. This is that for which he was made—to reveal the secret things of the Father.”

We’re distracted because we’ve lost that orientation, but we can learn again to be quiet. We can take our anxious worry and nervous energy to Jesus. When people disappoint us we can confide in him. When storms sweep over us we can hide in him. When people jostle one another and jockey for position, when they compete for fame and fortune and their passions begin to stir us we can run to that little chamber, shut the door and quiet our hearts again. We can be calm and strong—

Firm in the right; mild to the wrong;
Our heart, in every raging throng,
A chamber shut for prayer and song.
—AUTHOR UNKNOWN

Taken from In Quietness and Confidence, ©1999 by David Roper. Used by permission of Discovery House Publishers, Box 3566 Grand Rapids, MI 49501. All rights reserved.