In Silence—God Speaks
How do we hear a word from God when we are surrounded by the noisy and competing distractions of this world?
It is only in silence, apart from the lifeless and steady hum of the idolatrous soundtrack of our lives, that we can hear God speaking to us.
The Prophet Habakkuk got to the heart of being in the presence of almighty God in silence—where the world is not clamoring for our attention and affection, and where we are not idly speaking our self-directed demands.
God spoke through Habakkuk, saying, “What profit is an idol when its maker has shaped it, a metal image, a teacher of lies? For its maker trusts in his own creation when he makes speechless idols! Woe to him who says to a wooden thing, Awake; to a silent stone, Arise!
Can this teach? Behold, it is overlaid with gold and silver, and there is no breath at all in it.” (Habakkuk 2:18-19, ESV).
All that we create and surround ourselves with is limited, make lousy gods, and do not talk, or teach us anything of eternal consequence. The noisy and loud material things of this world which we have created do not speak to us the truths of God and his word.
In contrast to the idols we make and surround ourselves with, Habakkuk says, “But the Lord is in his holy temple; let all the earth keep silence before him.” (Habakkuk 2:18-20, ESV).
God’s person and presence demands that each of us—all the earth—keep silence before him. When we encounter the living God, the encounter renders the earth speechless in God’s presence. When we encounter the living God, there is nothing left for us to say. We only sit and listen in awe of him.
In silence—God speaks.
If we desire to hear a word from God when we are surrounded by the noisy and competing distractions of this world, we must remove the noise, or remove ourselves from the noise, and we must keep silence before him.
Because in silence—God speaks.
As Mother Teresa said, “In the silence of the heart God speaks. If you face God in prayer and silence, God will speak to you. Then you will know that you are nothing. It is only when you realize your nothingness, your emptiness, that God can fill you with Himself. Souls of prayer are souls of great silence.” (Mother Teresa, “In the Heart of the World: Thoughts, Stories, and Prayers”).
May we hear God speak to us in the silence as we recognize “the Lord is in his holy temple” and as we “keep silence before him.”
In Christ alone, Robbie
A Collect For Peace: “O God, the author of peace and lover of concord, to know you is eternal life and to serve you is perfect freedom: Defend us, your humble servants, in all assaults of our enemies; that we, surely trusting in your defense, may not fear the power of any adversaries, through the might of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.” (Book of Commons Prayer, 2019).
Photo by Kristina Flour, from Unsplash. More photography can be found here: https://unsplash.com/photos/BcjdbyKWquw
