Wandering Crusader #268 Sounds of Silence

Keep silence before me, O islands; and let the people renew their strength: let them come near; then let them speak: let us come near together to judgment. Isaiah 41:1

His voice thunders like the cascade of many waters. His words call worlds from nothing. Yet, God rarely speaks louder or more powerfully than when He speaks in silence. God’s silence is an invitation to draw near and experience His presence.

The Word of God became flesh, but not everyone heard what He was saying. He came to call us to Himself in a way few come to understand. His call was to fellowship with Him, to experience His presence. Peter says that in His presence is fullness of joy. Whether amid the crush of crowds or alone in a garden, He speaks, assuring us that He is near.

Jesus often told those He was teaching, “He that hath an ear, let him hear.” The vast majority of people present had two functioning ears. He must have had something in mind other than the reception of vibrations by the inner ear. Except God’s words reach the heart, His voice is never really heard. We “hear” best when we push aside all the background noise and grow silent.

Physical silence is the door to contemplation and reason. Being in our own head is not the horrible place the world would have us believe it is. We simply need to remember to take God there with us. “Let us come near together” is God’s invitation to know Him.

Every Christian will say that prayer is essential to the Christian experience. That is true. Many will provide people with formulas for prayer that can be very effective. A stable practice of prayer is not as easily achieved as one might think. That’s why prayer is called a discipline. Prayer is more than speaking to God, and perhaps the hardest thing to do is to quit speaking and listen. Silence in prayer produces a reverence that invites God to speak.

God is not hiding from us. He wants us to know His will more than we wish to know it. We have this idea that if we only knew His will, had Him spell it out to us, the sky would open up, the sun would shine, and our troubles would be over. Experience has taught me that nothing could be further from the truth. Knowing the will of God has always involved the surrender of a bit of me that I would have been content to hold on to. Make no mistake about it, that’s a good thing. It’s just not an easy thing. A little silence at such times goes a long way.

Maranatha