Walking Through FireSample

Day 2: Silence

Sometimes when we’re suffering, silence can feel too painful to endure. We avoid it by staying constantly busy, filling our days with activities and our minds with endless input like music, podcasts, and TV to keep us from feeling anything. I understand that temptation, but after the unexpected ending of my marriage, I saw how powerfully God could speak in the silence. Silence isn’t just empty space to get mired in our own fears but rather God can use it to transform us, attuning our ears to Him.  We can hear Him speaking to us in our pain. We might even hear the songs He sings over those He loves. (Zephaniah 3:17). 

The prophet Elijah met God in the silence. After Elijah had defied King Ahab’s wife, Jezebel, by destroying her false gods and prophets, she threatened his life and he was forced to run away. Alone, afraid, and discouraged, he wanted to hear from God. The Lord attended to his pain by sending an angel to feed him and by giving him a safe place to rest. Other prophets like Moses had heard from the Lord in dramatic ways including through a burning bush in a fiery mountain, but Elijah did not hear God’s voice in those things. It wasn’t until a gentle whisper that Elijah recognized God’s voice. (1 Kings 19:1-15). Some translations say it wasn’t until, “the sound of sheer silence.” The truth is, when we are hurting, we long to hear God’s voice through a megaphone, breaking through the clutter, but He often chooses to speak softly to us in our grief. In my own life, I sometimes sit in the silence and whisper these simple words from 1 Samuel 3:9, “Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.”

When we are in pain, we may think that God’s silence means that God isn’t there with us, but the reality is that He has never been closer. 

Ask: 

Am I allowing myself time to enter into silence with the Lord so I can hear Him more clearly?

Pray: 

Lord, In my pain, I so desire to hear your voice loud and clear, and yet, this may be a season in which you choose to speak softly. Help me to enter your silence, free from distractions that seek to keep me from hearing you. Give me patience as I wait. In your name, Amen.