Still, He Could Be Me

Ben Burton

He could have been me or me him. I've known him so well and for so long, this remarkable, wholesome, loving, soft-speaking boy who has maintained a constant but quiet background presence there for as long as I can recall. Now, when it's almost too late to matter, sadly all becomes clear that I could have known him forever. Yet, I've hardly known him at all.

I am able to accurately describe this pure, engaging boy because I have seen him countless times, always the same, never having changed one whit since that time years ago. I first saw him standing in the edge of the shade always looking directly but lovingly, without judgment or agenda, at me. He's 11 or 12 years old, a large, towheaded, brown-eyed, boy with a round face and a gentle, tolerable smile framing this earnest plea "It's me. I'm here for you, always have been and always will be, whenever you choose."

This captivating creature always dressed boy typical for church with neatly-pressed khakis, highly polished school shoes and a blue, broad cloth shirt dotted with water spots around the neck and shoulders as if he had just been sprinkled. He seems to glow with affection, an unmerited and unconditional love for me. He's been just that way, and only that way, all my life since then.

Then one ominous day while I trod neck-deep in desperate, smothering despair, an anonymous online poet threw these lifelines to me. "Be still. On these darkest of days, it waits patiently always and faithfully there," pointing me, urging me back to Isaiah's reminder (30:15) of the importance of listening for God's direction," in repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength."

The poet's timely words, then Isaiah's, confirm stunningly what I've finally and firmly discovered at this advanced age. That pure, young, innocent boy's message I hear and have heard all these years and ascribed weakly to my own imagination is surely the 'still small' voice of Almighty God! And that immaculate boy I see and hear regularly is me again as I was on that long ago day when I yielded "Just As I Am" at Logan's Chapel.

Then and now, I feel Born Again, to hesitantly use a term that has been sullied by insensitive use and even derision. That label notwithstanding, I now try harder to find times to just be still and listen (Psalm 46; 10) thank God and an unknown poet.

If I had the power to persuade you, the reader, or anyone else whom I love, of just one thing, it would be to urge you to be still and listen; to seek, hear, respect and adhere to that 'still small voice', for I am irrefutably convinced the voice you hear is that of our Almighty God. Further that voice is the creative connection, presenting the way our lives, these incomparable gifts, are designed, awarded and intended to be lived.

Ben Burton is a former Trojan football coach, industrial manager and professional speaker. He lives and writes in Hot Springs.