It amazes me at times the lengths people will go through (myself included) to avoid silence. What is it about the absence of noise that makes people get so antsy? I see it in the elevator, people making mindless small talk or clearing their throat, humming, anything to create some kind of noise that will fill the awkward air during the 60 second ride shared to the 3rd floor. I realized last night that the radio in my apartment has not been shut off for a week now - it has been on continuously, when I wake up -- noise. When I come home -- noise. So many of us spend our days filling it with "stuff"-- noise, tv, radios, dinners, books, meetings, shopping...the list is endless. Last night I came home, sat down on my couch and did nothing...absolutely nothing - and I realized how much goes on up in that little room upstairs when you have nothing to fill it with. My thought life is often in the form of conversation with God...and after a while, I found myself asking some really uncomfortable questions..."Lord, what are you doing with me? Where are you sending me? What's the point of this? What have I done with my life? Have I really done anything of value? Is anything I do of value?" Yikes! Where did that come from? Every question, like this cloud of impending futility. My mind began to race faster and faster, like a little cyclone of question marks and exclamation points...aha...this is why we don't like silence. The noise of our day has become more like a temporary distraction from what the mind really wants to know about...it keeps us occupied long enough to avoid those questions that make our stomach church. It's in those times of quiet that our mind is made to acknowledge the deeper things of life, being of course God and His purposes for our lives, and if we're not at peace with those things, the result can be extremely uncomfortable. What happens when we sit long enough to flesh all that out, to get past the junk and get to the real matter at hand. What happens when we're still long enough to really listen...I believe it's then that we can most clearly hear the voice of God. Calling us. Beckoning for our thoughts. Whispering His calling. Knocking on our door. I often wonder if more people wouldn't come to God sooner if they were forced to spend more time in solitude. I would imagine that after some time spent alone with our own thoughts, one would be forced to acknowledge God and His purposes...because we on our own, have none. How much do we impede the voice of God with our daily noise, our daily hustle and bustle of the things that we are trying to believe matter in this world...
.
God Himself tells us that He desires rest and stillness for our lives.
Isaiah 30:15 In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength, but you would have none of it. You said, 'No, we will flee on horses.' Or in our cases, 'we will flee to our jobs, to our movies and to our cell phones' - we are literally refusing the strength He is promising us, we are refusing His blessing and desire for our lives! Zephaniah 3:17 The LORD your God is with you, He is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, He will quiet you with His love, He will rejoice over you with singing. Dear Lord, what have we been missing? Your songs to us, Your words for us, lost in our inability to be still.
.
The problem is that this 'noise' we call life started at such a young age. Years and years of filling our minds and our time -- we don't know what to do with ourselves without it. Unfortunately, the inability to quiet our lives, leads to the inability to listen. It's really hard to have a conversation with someone while sitting in the 3rd row of a rock concert. I imagine that's what it looks like in relation to our conversations with God. We want words, we want revelation, we want wisdom, but we refuse to leave to concert long enough to actually hear what He has to say. Stop and picture it...there He is, standing right next to us, talking and sharing His heart, and even if we're looking Him straight in the face, we still can't hear Him over the racket. So, let's start with a trip to the bathroom...still a little loud, but oh, so much better than the 3rd row. And then, maybe we'll actually exit the gates...even better, but your ears are still ringing and a little dull from being so close to the speakers. So let's continue walking...and eventually His words are crystal clear. All that to say, it takes time to fully get away from the noise, to fully regain our hearing. It's not a quick trip to the restroom that does it...we have to actually leave the park and go on a walk down the street to gain the full value of what He has to say to us. And as we finally hear what it was that He's been trying to say all this time, we suddenly realize that the concert we were so captivated by wasn't really all that good to begin with...we begin to crave the quiet.
.
So...the question remains...are you willing to sit through the awkward silence, to go on a walk down the path of quietness, to leave your own personal concert, if the end result is the clear and unmistakable voice of God? I know I am...and I'm heading towards the exit now.
No comments:
Post a Comment