Screaming Silence

It would seem that recently God has indeed been speaking to me about my time management habits and more than that the noise I make in this time. Its seems evident to me that I would rather turn up the music (whether it be Christian artist or not) than lie on my bed in absolute silence and prayer waiting on the whisper of God’s voice. Even as I type now I have the music playing.

So what is it about us that makes us so uneasy when we are silent, we all have had that time with someone where something was said and then it was followed by a long awkward silence but I have to ask, is it awkward because of the silence or silent because of the awkward statement made? It could well be both.

Its very hard to obtain true silence today, try it right now, turn of all music and close all doors, you will hear the buzzing of your computer or the sound of a sander outside, or the sound of cicadas. It seems that as hard as we try it is very hard to obtain true silence in today’s world but my other objection is if we were to obtain it what would we do with it? Would we start talking to fill it? Or start thinking weird thought’s?
Silence truly is a valuable thing and in 1 Kings 19:11ff we read

“The LORD said, "Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the LORD, for the LORD is about to pass by."
Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the LORD, but the LORD was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake came a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper. When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave.
Then a voice said to him, "What are you doing here, Elijah?"

Here we see that God was not in the things that would make the most sound, but in this instance of Elijahs personal connection with God, God is in the ‘gentle whisper’ I may be taking this out of context and please notify me if you think I am but I belive that this means that for us and our personal times with God we need to learn how to “Be still” and know that he is God. (Psalm 46:10) after a while we begin to notice how everything is so loud but we seem to prefer this noise over the pure silence. I do not think many of us are able to sustain such silence very easily and if we do it would seem that our impatience gets to us before we get to the silence

So often we all get caught up in the rush of life and in the noise of worship and praise and rarely do we make the effort to have quiet times, to simply take a break from life, to separate ourselves from our present sufferings and sins and to clear our head from all devious thoughts. I truly take my head off to those that meditate properly because it is the art of clearing ones head from all thoughts. I challenge you right now to try lean back in your chair and do absolutely nothing for 30 seconds, no movements, no thoughts.

Its hard isn’t it? And that is why I commend those that meditate not because of what it represents but because they are able to obtain a silence that so few of us get to experience, a silence that is soothing to the soul, a silence that in itself seems to speak volumes to us.

May God give you this soothing silence, may you be able to hear his whispering voice in the outrageous noise of everyday and may we all teach our ears to hear the things that truly matter, that is.

God’s voice.