The Discipline of Silence: Pt. 1 — Morning Devotions

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Transcript

If you’ve ever driven past a monastery, I wonder what has come to your mind. And anytime I’ve seen uh a monastery or a building like that, one word that comes in my mind is the word silence.

And what I know of this in many of the places, it’s a rule of silence that must be obeyed, or I think they call it the vow of silence. It must be very hard to obey this rule, no talking. And why is that? Because it gives the priests or brothers and others that are there a chance to speak or commune with God in total silence, not an easy thing to do.

So they think about peace and solace and times of meditation and reflection and prayer. And I think they also think about serenity. And these are wonderful topics to think about, serenity and silence. I want to talk today and again tomorrow about this discipline of silence.

It’s very hard – silence.

We really don’t do very well with this one, do we? Why? Because we tend to fill every minute of every day with noise. And my guess is at home that, uh, you might have the stereo or the TV or the radio playing.

And then you get in your car and what do you do? Well, you probably turn on the radio, you put in a CD or your MP3 player, whatever it is you have, and you listen. You go to the shopping mall and there’s music playing over the sound system, you go for a walk and you might put on headphones to listen to music. You go downtown and you’re hammered with the sounds of motors, revving and horns honking, tyres, squealing. Not very nice late at night, is it?

But we often think about silence. But why is it so hard for us to practise silence? Why are we afraid of it? Why are we in fact intimidated by silence?

And if we were very truthful, I think we’d say we just don’t like silence. We don’t know what to do with it. And so as a result, we do everything else we can to avoid the silence. But you know, the problem is that we’re missing out on something very important and a very valuable practise because silence gives us time to think and to reflect.

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And really to evaluate what’s going on and what’s important and to filter what we need to do and what we need to say. In other words, you can use silence to regroup and to re-energize and to connect with God and to hear His still small voice. Yes, I know that we can’t eliminate all the noise from our lives, but I think we can reduce it, and I believe it’s critical for us to carve out a few minutes from our day or a few hours from our week to practise silence as a habit.

And no, I’m not asking you to take a vow of silence. I’m just talking about integrating silence as a regular part of your life.

The Bible says, and I’m looking at Ecclesiastes 3 verse 1 and 7, it says to everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven, a time to tear, a time to sow, a time to keep silence, and a time to speak. There it is in the Bible. We have no problem with the times to speak, but what we need to recognise that there is also a time for silence, and we need to work those times into our lives.

So how successful are you?

If you read some of the Old Testament, you might know the story of Elijah, the prophet. Now it was essential for him to experience silence so that he could actually hear God. He had the same problem. He was a very busy man. He was stressed out and, in fact, more serious than that. Someone was trying to kill him. He’d had enough and so he, he just got away and travelled all the way to Mount Sinai to be alone, and he experienced several significant things an earthquake, wind, and fire, but God wasn’t there.

But God was in in the silence in the stillness.

And as he was there with God in that quietness, he was encouraged and empowered, and he was able to get on board, as it were, back to life again. It wasn’t going to be easy, but he needed that time to be silent with God.

So we probably don’t practise silence a lot, but we need to think about it. Could it be that despite all our technological advances and theological understanding, the one thing that we’re in need of is a quiet, still attentiveness to the presence of God? I think the answer to that one is yes, we do need it.

Let’s Pray

Sometimes, Lord, we don’t, don’t even recognise our own needs, and yet you supply that need before we have asked. We thank You, Lord, for the increased strength and wisdom and joy you give.

Help us to learn the art of silence – to be quiet before you, because I pray this in the wonderful name of Jesus. Amen.

(The Discipline of Silence: Pt. 2 — Morning Devotions)

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