Silence Is Golden

Matthew 14:
[21] And they that had eaten were about five thousand men, beside women and children.
[22] And straightway Jesus constrained his disciples to get into a ship, and to go before him unto the other side, while he sent the multitudes away.
[23] And when he had sent the multitudes away, he went up into a mountain apart to pray: and when the evening was come, he was there alone.

Luke 9:
[18] And it came to pass, as he was ALONE praying, his disciples were with him: and he asked them, saying, Whom say the people that I am?

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We love the distractions of noise. As soon as we get in our cars, we turn on the radio. As soon as we get home, we turn on the television. If we are in a spot where we have neither, we hum and sing. We find something that will drown out the silence of our day. We often refuse to go where there will be silence. We love noise. We surround ourselves with others that make a lot of noise. You ever sit in the house doing something, and have the television on... just for noise.

We have noticed that as long as there is noise we do not have to think. And if we do not have to think then we do not have to think on our own life; our own actions, our own priorities, our own self. If there is silence then we just might have to look in the mirror (figuratively). If we look in the mirror we might just see something that we don’t want to see. We might see someone that we really do not like.

I say that we need to join the silence. We need to cherish a certain amount of silence. Jesus often went aside from the hustle and bustle of the day to sit in silence. He thought about His mission. He spent time in the silent presence of His Father. He spent time in silence seeking God to plan His next move. We need to follow that example.

Silence is truly golden. It is in silence that we can really look deep within ourselves. We can really concentrate on what the Spirit of God is showing us; about our own self, about our purpose for that particular hour and season of our life, and about the world around us. It is in the silence that we can truly come to grips with content of our heart. We can really come to grips with the fact that we are sinful people in need a holy God and Savior Christ Jesus. It is in the silence that we can be honest with our self and stop telling our self that we are some great individual who's waste don’t stink (you know what I am saying).

I found/find it to be a most liberating event to be able to actually sit in silence, alone with my thoughts, and alone with the Spirit of God which is in me. In that silence I learned of my own nakedness before God. I learned that there is nothing I can keep hidden from God. Not my evil thoughts, ungodly actions, or false notions of my self. But guess what. The very thing that I did not want to do (sit in silence and look at myself) I found to be the most awesome and unbinding thing. It is like a heavy weight and chain be lifted from me. I could be honest, not only to God (who knew anyway), but to myself. I do not have to walk around pretending to be all knowing, perfect, and in need of nothing. I found that I am nothing with Christ. I found that what I thought I knew was not as much as I thought. I found that the goodness I thought I possessed was not good enough. Most of all, I found that our Father loves me, in spite of myself. You too can come to that same conclusion in the silence of self reflection. Funny thing about that honest self reflection is that It points us to the throne of God. Where else would we rather be, and where else should we be. Eternity is there. Forgiveness is there. Freedom is there. Salvation is there, and ONLY there.

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Are you scared of the silence?