Silence: Its Power and Necessityنموونە

Silence: Its Power and Necessity

Psalm 46:11 - Be still and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted over the earth.

Isaiah 30:15 - In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and in trust shall be your strength.

Silence can be terrifying because it is in those moments that we will realise that it is only God and us. Sometimes in that silence I am confronted with my own emptiness, nothingness, finiteness, brokenness, sin, failures... and with God. In those silences God can choose to either speak to us or to remain silent.

It is in silence that we become one with God. There is a place where we meet the invisible God "in quietness and confidence" (Isaiah 30:15). There, in God's presence, we can come to our senses and hear Him saying: “Calm down and acknowledge that I am God” (Psalm 46:10) This passage can also be translated as: “Forsake, be still, and know that I am God.”

In the silences we learn that being quiet with God is enough. There we learn that God doesn’t always need to speak to us and that He doesn’t need to reveal Himself - He can if He wants to. God doesn't have to do signs and wonders, appear to me in dreams and visions, and answer my prayers before I will believe in Him.

The third—and fourth-century Egyptian desert fathers did not expect God to reveal Himself to them. Alone in the wilderness, they dedicated themselves to Him and strived to live a holy life. They did not consider themselves worthy enough for God to consider revealing Himself to them. They were, after all, just simple, sinful monks who had been saved by grace. Despite that, they “saw” God and experienced His power but never demanded it from Him.

Occasionally, a monk by the name of St. Makarios received a visitation from a devil who posed as an angel. The devil claimed to have been sent by God. The monk simply responded by saying, “See if there isn’t a mistake somewhere. You have certainly been sent to someone else. I didn’t do anything that would warrant God sending an angel to me.” With that the devil gave up and left.

In the same way that we need daily bread, we need silence that is free from the voices and expectations of others and ourselves. Silence is necessary for us to be able to hear the voice of Truth and to see Jesus for who He is - the one who steps before us without compromise and sets us free from people’s opinions.

Silence allows us to enter into God’s rest. It is in this place that we experience true freedom as we find ourselves liberated from an existence that centres around what we do, what we have done, or what we should still be doing.

Take the Word into the silence — read it, reflect on it. Ask the One who speaks to you to come and show himself to you — his character, actions, and attitude towards you. Clean water from a holy source will come and wash you and quench your thirst.

Stop for a moment. Stop reading other people's words. Seek silence and read the Word. There, in silence and with the Word, you will get more answers than in all the books in the world. There, in the silence, you will begin to hear God - His purified, holy and eternal words.

In heaven there was silence for half an hour (Revelation 8:1). Nothing happens in heaven when there is silence. Heaven moves when God speaks. We must learn not to speak and not to do so before God speaks.