Selah

Selah is a term that is used at times at the end of certain verses in the Bible that has always intrigued me but I have not really invested any time in researching it.  This past Sunday I was part of a Jail Chapel service for forty women inmates and one of the ladies I would honored to work with spoke to the group of inmates about their time of Selah while incarcerated.  In a flash for me, the term took on great gravity and I have found myself pondering Selah ever since that worship service.

 

The term, basically, connotes to "take pause" thus to reflect on what you have just read in the Scripture.  When put in the context of people in a holding pattern in their life, for example in a jail cell, Selah becomes extremely meaning.  As I took over the worship leading in speaking to the gathering, the Selah concept kept finding its way into my comments.  Since that Sunday afternoon as I sit here on a very cold Tuesday evening, I have found myself listening more deeply, reading more thoroughly and seeking to understand in more depth what is being said to me as I journey through the hours since that jail service.

 

I have decided to blog the concept for I think there is more than ample example in our busy-crazed world where fewer and fewer people even think about pausing to reflect and thus to consider and ponder the next step of their journey.  Perhaps the hit to the head with Darleen's comment about Selah was made more imperatively in learning of a female inmate the previous Thursday night trying to killing herself by hanging inside the jail.  Today as I attending my weekly Bible study from Luke, the amazing Scripture recording Zecharias' comments at the day of circumcising of his miracle son, John.  I found myself reading and rereading during the Study in wanting to plumb the amazing gravity of John's father's words to those in his family that came to the ceremony.  That is an example of how my mind has been affected by the power of Selah since Sunday.

 

In a world seemingly gone mad, and it has, we must find time to take pause to ponder many questions we face as to direction, investment, decision, choice, for ourselves and others that depend on our decisions and choices.  For example, I watch student loan debt in this nation spiking annually as the quality of education and value of the education deteriorates and just scratch my head.  I have seen far too much example in my decade of university teaching of a significant percentage of students coming to college that are not motivated to perform or, frankly, are not academically skilled to take on that responsibility.  That is but one example where the concept of Selah should be forced to take place before that costly and wasteful decision to attend college is made.

 

My assumption at my age and stage of life is that truly using the toolbar of Selah in one's life coming after passing a gate of maturity.  It matters not the age of the person but the events that have crafted that person and the ensuing life that has been charted with good and poor choices.  I stand as witness to that sentence with raised hand!

 

Selah!  Wow! Selah!  My challenge to each of you reading this is that you will take a season and truly seek time and pause on life decisions but more especially to seek God's Will in and for your life via those decisions; and we all face them don't we?

 

So in closing, Friends ... Selah on your moments ahead!  If you are reading this you can know you are special to me and for whatever the reason at this very moment, that specialness is made even more acute. 

 

Thank you for allowing me into your world for a few moments. I am blessed!