Why is silence so hard to deal with?
183 million people are regularly exposed to noise levels labeled as excessive by the Environmental Protection Agency.
Do you have a cell phone?
A pager?
Voice-mail?
Do you have a cell phone with voice-mail and e-mail?
Do you have a TV?
More than one TV?
Do you have a radio on all day?
On at work, in the car, at home?
Is there such a thing as visual noise?
Do you wish there were more billboards along the roads you drive?
Do we have enough strip malls yet?
Do you feel like God is distant?
Do you wish God's voice would be louder in your life?
Is there a connection between the amount of noise in our live and our inability to hear God?
SUV's and minivans now come with separate CD and DVD systems for the back seats.
You can buy wired clothing now. Coats and jackets equipped with cell phones and MP3 players.
Try this.
Make yourself comfortable in your chair and begin breathing slowly as you read.
Then Moses and the priests, who are Levites, said to all Israel, "Be silent, Oh Israel, and listen!"
_Deuteronomy 27:9
Search your hearts and be silent.
_Psalm 4:4
But the Lord is in His holy temple: Let all the earth be silent before Him.
_Habakkuk 2:20
Come to me, all who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest.
_Jesus in Matthew 11
If I am not still, and if I don't listen, how is Jesus going to give me rest?
Have you spent the same amount of time worrying and talking about your difficult, confusing situations as you have spent in silence, listening to what God might have to say?
Why is talking so much easier than listening?
But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed.
_Luke 5:16
These were regular disciplines Jesus had.
Silence. Solitude.
When was the last time you were in a solitary place?
What is it about silence that is so difficult?
Why is it easier to surround myself with noise and keep moving than to stop, be silent and listen?
How much noise do I voluntarily subject myself to?
Does my schedule, my time, my life look like that of a person who want to hear God's voice?
Maybe the healing and guidance we desperately need is not going to come from one more meeting or therapy session
or sermon or self-help book
but from simply listening for the voice of God.
Do you really believe that God's voice is more interesting than the voices around you?
Is it possible that you have been searching for God in the winds,
the earthquakes and fires
and He is waiting to speak to you in the silence?
183 million people are regularly exposed to noise levels labeled as excessive by the Environmental Protection Agency.
Do you have a cell phone?
A pager?
Voice-mail?
Do you have a cell phone with voice-mail and e-mail?
Do you have a TV?
More than one TV?
Do you have a radio on all day?
On at work, in the car, at home?
Is there such a thing as visual noise?
Do you wish there were more billboards along the roads you drive?
Do we have enough strip malls yet?
Do you feel like God is distant?
Do you wish God's voice would be louder in your life?
Is there a connection between the amount of noise in our live and our inability to hear God?
SUV's and minivans now come with separate CD and DVD systems for the back seats.
You can buy wired clothing now. Coats and jackets equipped with cell phones and MP3 players.
Try this.
Make yourself comfortable in your chair and begin breathing slowly as you read.
Then Moses and the priests, who are Levites, said to all Israel, "Be silent, Oh Israel, and listen!"
_Deuteronomy 27:9
Search your hearts and be silent.
_Psalm 4:4
But the Lord is in His holy temple: Let all the earth be silent before Him.
_Habakkuk 2:20
Come to me, all who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest.
_Jesus in Matthew 11
If I am not still, and if I don't listen, how is Jesus going to give me rest?
Have you spent the same amount of time worrying and talking about your difficult, confusing situations as you have spent in silence, listening to what God might have to say?
Why is talking so much easier than listening?
But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed.
_Luke 5:16
These were regular disciplines Jesus had.
Silence. Solitude.
When was the last time you were in a solitary place?
What is it about silence that is so difficult?
Why is it easier to surround myself with noise and keep moving than to stop, be silent and listen?
How much noise do I voluntarily subject myself to?
Does my schedule, my time, my life look like that of a person who want to hear God's voice?
Maybe the healing and guidance we desperately need is not going to come from one more meeting or therapy session
or sermon or self-help book
but from simply listening for the voice of God.
Do you really believe that God's voice is more interesting than the voices around you?
Is it possible that you have been searching for God in the winds,
the earthquakes and fires
and He is waiting to speak to you in the silence?
2 comments:
ok, i've been thinking about what i would say ever since tues. night and it might be a litle bit of a read but i didn't leave a comment last time so i'm making up for it :-)
the thing that stands out to me from our discussion is that it can be very difficult to hear God when there's so much noise going on. If He chooses to speak in a whisper, how can we hear Him above the all the other voices around us (be it music or tv or whatever)? i really liked what rob bell said in the video about the passage in 1 kings - that it means God spoke in the silence.
there's a quote that's hanging in the hallway of my house: "make time for quiet moments as God whispers and the world is loud." everyone and everything is vying for our attention but it's not until we step away from all of it that we can hear God. He's not going to try and speak over all of the other noise but wait for us to want to hear Him as much as He wants to talk to us.
i think sometimes we view silence as a bad thing. we look at it as needing to fill it somehow instead of just...being. by taking the time to just think we're able to refocus and allow God to maybe show us things that we've prayed about but never stopped to hear what He would say. it'd be like asking someone a question but walking away before they can answer. is there even a point to asking?
saying all of that to say, i think we can all agree that we could make a little more time to stop and simply listen to the silence.
I forgot to include this in the post, but I absolutely loved Elizabeth's comment relating to the ideas we can come up with when we take time to just "sit still and think." She brought up Jeremiah 33:3, which in the Message bible says, "This is God's Message, the God who made earth, made it livable and lasting, known everywhere as God: 'Call to me and I will answer you. I'll tell you marvelous and wondrous things that you could never figure out on your own.'" As Elizabeth was saying, this is what happens when we take the time to really hear God. Awesome.
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