Meditation on Psalm 62:1

Psalm 62:1 - "For God alone my soul in silence waits; from him comes my salvation."

The following is an excerpt from a sermon by Dietrich Bonhoeffer in his book Meditating on the Word.

"Any beginning is difficult, and whoever begins such an undertaking will experience the first attempts as strange and perhaps completely empty. But that cannot continue for long; the soul will fill itself, it will begin to revive and gain strength. Then it will experience the eternal silence which rests in the love of God. Cares and sorrows, unrest and haste, noise and confusion, dreams and anxieties - all will be stilled in that silence, in which the soul waits for God alone, from whom comes its salvation.

It is a law of the world that there can never be rest and satisfaction here. Here no passion will ever be completely stilled. Every satisfaction has planted within itself that which drives beyond what has been achieved. The rich person wants to become richer, the mighty one mightier. The reason for this is that in the world there is never anything completely whole, so that each success, no matter how great, is only a partial success. If it is possible for there to be rest and silence anywhere, then it is only possible where there is wholeness, and that is only in God. All human strivings and drives are finally directed towards God and can only find their complete satisfaction in him. Augustine, the great father of the church, expressed this most beautifully when he said: "Lord God, you have made all things for yourself, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in you." May God grant us all to know this rest, may he draw us into his solitude and silence. We will thank him for it."