WAIT IN SILENCE
by theBaileyDrink
Ps.62:5 – My soul, wait in silence for God only, for my hope is from Him.
Before I became a Christian I had to always be surrounded by noise. I would put a stack of albums on my turntable to play before I went to sleep. I could not stand the silence. Several weeks before my conversion my car broke down late at night several miles from my house. The breakdown was in Pearl River, Louisiana; not a very friendly place for hippies in 1973. I decided to walk home. In took me about eight hours to accomplish that task. It was a very quiet country road with nothing but an occasional car or truck passing by. It was a very long and very quiet walk. I didn’t like being alone with my thoughts in those days, thankfully the Lord began to speak to me and draw me in that night. I was waiting in silence, I just didn’t know it. Here is how Bonhoeffer describes this waiting.
“We are silent in the early hours of each day, because God is supposed to have the first word, and we are silent before going to sleep, because to God also belongs the last word. We are silent solely for the sake of the word, not in order to show dishonor to the word but in order to honor and receive it properly. Silence ultimately means nothing but waiting for God’s word and coming away blessed by God’s word…. Silence before the word, however, will have its effect on the whole day. If we have learned to be silent before the word, we will also learn to be economical with silence and speech throughout the day…The silence of the Christian is a listening silence, a humble silence that for the sake of humility can also be broken at any time. It is a silence in connection with the word…. In being quiet there is a miraculous power of clarification, of purification, of bringing together what is important.”
Actually this is what Advent is all about. We are waiting for the appearance of the Savior. If you take time and wait in silence and focus on passages from the Word of God, you too will experience that voice that speaks in the silence. Always talking comes from thinking that we have all the answers. Coming to the end of ourselves brings us to the place where we can only listen for His voice.