Tuesday, October 5, 2010

Some Words on Silence

I spill verbiage for a living. I need to have something to say, at least enough to get through the various lessons and sermons of a week.

Lately, however, I've had little more to say or write than that. God bless the prolific bloggers, article writers and authors --I simply don't know how they do it. I have a book in process, but have not written on it in weeks --I simply lack the words.

Silence can be the result when life itself feels oppressive. Some people pour forth out of the difficulties of life --think of David or Job's many words. For others, it renders them mute.

Sometimes it feels as if God is not speaking to us. I know, the theologue will point out that God has spoken and has said all he needed to say. Yet, in our experience, it can appear that, however much we may speak to God in prayer, he has nothing to say to us in return.

I am hoping against hope, however, that God's silence is a way of his communicating to us, as maddening as it can be. And sometimes, we just need to be silent before him.

I do not like silence. I fill my silence with music to lift my spirits, and with the mindless blather of talk radio to quieten the solitariness that accompanies the pastorate (solitariness is different from loneliness, mind you --I have friends). Yet, I need to leave room for silence.

Maybe God is speaking to me about the importance of silence.

4 comments:

  1. Never underestimate the value of silence; it can mean the difference between winning or losing a negotiation, Learning something or not, getting a response or not, waiting on the Lord or mindlessly rattling on. Thanks for reminding me.

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  2. Ah, well, I have something to say about lacking words and your book that you haven't written on in weeks.

    You must write every, every, every, single-solitary day. Okay? (Six out of seven is okay, too, but writing only five out of seven simply will not do.)

    I'm learning this lesson myself. It's a very hard one to learn, at least for me.

    If you don't write every day, the muse will never show up. If you write every day (really write, really fulfill a word quota), the muse may not show up, but at least she will know where to find you.

    And the truth is that most everything we think about "that book we're gonna write," when we're not actually writing, is completely and totally wrong.

    Be encouraged. Write!

    Pax!

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  3. I don't like it when God is silent and I have to wait (and be silent). That's where I am now. Day by day sometimes hour by hour. Maddening really. A song that pulls me out of my pity party is "I Can Only Imagine" sung various ways by various people, but the words strike my heart like a guitar player strumming with their eyes closed. Taking me to a frame of mind that takes me from this world to a place where I can imagine what it will be like to see His face. Well...Thanks for listening and blogging.

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  4. This week in "My Utmost," Oswald Chambers wrote on the silence of God based on John 11:6 "when he heard that Lazarus was sick, he stayed two more days."

    God is definitely at work in the silence. I'm convinced that the life of the Patriarchs is proof of this. Isaac waited 20 years for the twins to be born. Abraham waited 25 for Isaac. II Peter 3:9

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