To hear silence

Sometimes it’s interesting how God pulls together a whole bunch of tiny details that culminate into something like this. Chase mentioned below that we really want to use the blog to expand on Wednesday night lessons, but if it’s okay with you all, I’d like to throw in my two cents about the high school lesson Sunday because it tied in with the girls’ Bible study topic from last week. If you’re a middle school boy, and you have no idea what I mean… you’ll get over it. :)

On Sunday, Chase talked about how silence is a part of authentic worship. And he showed Rob Bell’s Nooma video “Noise.” I’ve seen that video countless times, and I always find something new to consider. For instance, I wonder how do deaf people experience God? If we can know God so intimately through silence, why aren’t all deaf people on fire for Jesus? I had a friend in college who had degenerative hearing loss, meaning she will eventually lose her sense of hearing. For a time, I was impressed with her close relationship with God; it seemed that she really did hear Him more clearly. But as time passed, she veered away, just like anyone else might. So maybe you can hear the call of the world even if you can’t hear your telephone ring.

I guess sometimes it isn’t about what sounds reach our ears, but rather what we choose to listen to. And beyond that, how we choose to react to what we hear.

In Genesis 19, God sends messengers to Lot and his family to tell them He was going to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah. Lot’s wife was absolutely silent in this story; we don’t see a single word that she spoke. She understood the value of being silent sometimes. In her silence, she could clearly hear the warnings of the angels, but she didn’t really listen. She decided to disobey their instructions and she looked back at her old home while fleeing, and God turned her into a big ol’ salt lick. Nice. She heard, but she didn’t listen.

“Why is it easier to surround myself with noise and keep moving?” asks Rob Bell.

Psalm 46:10a says “Be still, and know that I am God.”

Lamentations 3:26 says “It is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the LORD.”

Jesus calmed the raging storm. He kept quiet when accusations were thrown at him before he was crucified.

In silence we find God. And in God we find freedom. Why is it so easy to throw ourselves into the noise of the world? Because we are bound by fear… the fear of what freedom in Christ really could mean. All God wants is for us to love Him back, and in doing so, we have the capacity to rock this noisy world around us with the sounds of God—the sounds of joy, of compassion, of devotion. While noise doesn’t always drive us to distraction (you can hear God in music or someone speaking or even in unexpected places [also, see the YouTube video below]), God whispers most intently when we choose to quietly contemplate Him. If we take our ears out of the world and choose to listen to God as He speaks to our hearts, what would we hear?

Do you think it’s possible to have a heart of reverent silence in a world of chaos?

Turn your ear to heaven and hear...