silence is golden

How annoying is it when someone incessantly talks when you are in a movie theater?

I find it terribly frustrating. It’s like, you paid to see this movie and you’re not gonna watch it? They’re not going to play it again. I don’t get it. You’re missing it. If you aren’t going to pay attention, why are you here?

I feel like sometimes our lives can be like that. God is trying to talk to us, but we are talking over Him. We aren’t paying attention.

But in this case we didn’t have to pay to get in. He paid the price for us, by giving us the free gift of eternal life through his son.

So even though we “got in free,” we only get one shot at this life, at the short amount of time we have on this earth. We only get to experience the things we are experiencing – good or bad – once. We only get the chance to learn from each experience once.

We don’t get to go back and do it over. We don’t get to watch the “movie of our lives” again. Your life is a movie that is only going to play once…

And I’ve realized that it’s time I start paying more attention to what God is teaching me. But that’s going to require me to talk less and listen more… something else I am working on not only with God, but with everyone else. I love this quote:

“The man who serves you the best is the one who is less intent on hearing from you what he wills to hear than on shaping his will according to what he hears from you.” – Augustine, The Confessions

But back to God. How can I hear his voice if I am constantly talking over him? If I allow the “noise” of this world to drown it out?

Silence.

“In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength. But you would have none of it.” – Isaiah 30:15

I believe the Lord speaks to us in the silences of our lives. In the quiet places. Or at least he does to me.

Recently I was sick for a couple of weeks and spent a lot of time sitting in bed, writing, reading, playing the guitar, reflecting, silent. And I really did feel the Lord helping me to understand the things he has been teaching me in my life lately.

The problem is finding time to be silent in this world we live in now. Not only are we so busy, we are constantly inundated with technology. So in the midst of running around town, crossing a million things of our lists, we are also constantly bombarded by social media and texts and emails and tweets and facebook posts and twitter updates and instagrams.

If we wanted to, it would be possible to never be silent. To never be still.

But then we might not ever hear God’s voice.

Richard Foster says, “In contemporary society our Adversary (Satan) majors in 3 things: noise, hurry, and crowds. If he can keep us engaged in ‘muchness’ & ‘manyness’ he will rest satisfied.”

Let’s not let Satan distract us from God. Let’s not allow the enemy to hinder us from hearing his voice. Let’s make the time to be silent and listen to what God is saying and be guided by his voice.

It’s there. He’s talking. Are we listening?