Hymn of the Week: There Is a Place of Quiet Rest
Glory to God: #824

The devotion has been reprinted with permission of the author, James C. Howell, from his book entitled: Unrevealed Until Its Season: a Lenten Journey with Hymns.

Published by Upper Room Books 2021.

The book can be found here: https://upperroombooks.com/

Near to the Heart of God

Text and Music Cleland Boyd McAfee 1901

There is a place of quiet rest,
near to the heart of God,
a place where sin cannot molest,
near to the heart of God.

O Jesus, blest Redeemer,
sent from the heart of God,
hold us, who wait before thee,
near to the heart of God.

There is a place of comfort sweet,
near to the heart of God,
a place where we our Savior meet,
near to the heart of God.

O Jesus, blest Redeemer,
sent from the heart of God,
hold us, who wait before thee,
near to the heart of God.

There is a place of full release,
near to the heart of God,
a place where all is joy and peace,
near to the heart of God.

O Jesus, blest Redeemer,
sent from the heart of God,
hold us, who wait before thee,
near to the heart of God.

A Place of Quiet Rest

What is God’s greatest achievement, the truest indication of the magnificence of God? It is that God – instead of being merely omnipotent (merely omnipotent?), omniscient, omnipresent, infinite, ineffable, and transcendent – is primarily tender, present, closer than the breath you just drew, feeling the beating of your heart, loving you personally more than you love yourself or anybody else.

One of the hymns my grandmother sang while doing her chores or cooking dinner was “Near to the Heart of God.” Picture this: The God who had the power to create the universe, with galaxies and nebulae and black holes, not to mention the peaks of the Alps and the depths of the oceans, was on intimate terms with a short, aging woman from nowhere in particular. No matter the circumstance, she knew what the Bible’s poet declared: “For me, it is good to be near God” (Psalm 73:28).

“There is a place of quiet rest, near to the heart of God.” Where is this place? In my heart, of course. But you probably also need an actual place of quiet rest. Jesus spoke of shutting the door of your closet and praying in there (see Matthew 6:6). When I was a boy, there was a huge rock in the woods behind our house. I used to climb to the top and just sit there daydreaming. I wasn’t trying to practice Sabbath

or being still and knowing God was God (see Psalm 46:10). But I believe God was luring me there, preparing me to be someone who would always yearn for a place of quiet rest near to the heart of God.

We all yearn for quiet, and yet we harbor a fear of silence. The quiet feels like loneliness. I can’t dodge my self-doubts and worries when it's quiet. The hymn says this quiet rest is “a place where sin cannot molest.” Yet that’s exactly what I’m afraid of! The darkness might jump me in the quiet. But in reality, it jumps me when I’m rushing around.

The spiritual life is learning the delights of solitude, which isn’t loneliness but resting in and with God. It’s not taking a nap or getting away for a vacation. It’s not doing nothing; it is being. You probably need a dedicated place. You certainly will need to shut off your gadgets. The single greatest peril to the dream of a prayerful life is that we are always available for a text, a call, or an email. But if you’re always available, then you’re never available to God or to other people. We must find a way to visit Sabbath, to be still and know that God is God, to take a seat in the term Abraham Heschel used to describe the Sabbath: a “cathedral” of time.

“Hold us who wait before thee near to the heart of God.” How often does the Bible invite us to wait on the Lord? We don’t like to wait in line, in a waiting room, or for a diagnosis. It’s the loss of control. And yet, the one we are waiting on is our Lord. So instead of flitting away, we ask him to hold us. Please. We can be held. We can trust.

My mother-in-law used to speak of her morning prayer as her “lap time,” imagining that she would curl up in her heavenly Father’s lap, not to ask for favors, but simply to be, to feel the love.

Brian Doyle recalled when his sons would fall asleep on their pew during worship. He thought of this as “sheer simple mammalian affection, the wordless pleasure of leaning against someone you love and trust.” After they were grown and had leaned away from parents and church, he asked them to sit with him once more in worship as he was dying of cancer. Those little boys were now strong, and in his weakened state, he was the one leaning on them.

This leaning, this wordless pleasure, reminds us of our life with God. It is one of the ways God is close to us. I leaned more than once on my grandmother, the one who sang “There is a place of quiet rest, near to the heart of God.” Our hearts beating together, as close to God’s heart as you can get on this earth. “A place of comfort sweet . . .a place where all is joy and peace, near to the heart of God.”

Abraham Joshua Heschel, The Sabbath: It's Meaning for Modern Man (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1951), 8.

Brian Doyle, One Long River of Song: Notes on Wonder (New York: Little, Brown, 2019), 239.

Hymn of the Week, a Lenten Journey: March 7, 2022