The Intimacy of Silence

“So, when He heard that
he was sick, He stayed two more
days in the place where He was.”
JOHN 11:6

When God is silent in your life, what is your instant reaction? “Oh my God has forsaken me. He has left me here utterly alone.”  NO. On the contrary God is showing you a deeper level of intimacy and trust.

“Has God trusted you with a silence—a silence that is big with meaning? God’s silences are His answers. Think of those days of absolute silence in the home at Bethany! Is there anything analogous to those days in your life? Can God trust you like that, or are you still asking for a visible answer? God will give you the blessings you ask if you will not go any further without them; but His silence is the sign that He is bringing you into a marvelous understanding of Himself. Are you mourning before God because you have not had an audible response? You will find that God has trusted you in the most intimate way possible, with an absolute silence, not of despair, but of pleasure, because He saw that you could stand a bigger revelation.” – My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers

Not only is it a revelation when God is silent, but it is also imperative that we ourselves be silent that we may hear from Him when He is speaking. In his book, Abba’s Child, Brennan Manning writes this about silent solitude:

“The indispensible condition for developing and maintaining the awareness of our belovedness is time with God. In solitude we tune out the nay-saying whispers of our worthlessness and sink down into the mystery of our true self. Our longing to know who we really are—which is the source of all our discontent—will never be satisfied until we confront and accept our solitude. There we discover that the truth of our belovedness is really true.”

If I were to be bluntly honest and real with you, I would tell you that I am in many ways, afraid to be alone in solitude. I always have to have some sort of noise going on, something to read, or someone to talk to. Are you like me and feel very awkward when you are all alone and are just sitting in the quietness doing nothing? In that moment, every idea that I could possible think of to keep myself busy comes to my mind. In all honesty, in that quietness and solitude is exactly where God wants me so that I may discover more if Him and more of who I am. All the noise and business of our lives keeps the very voice of God silenced in our lives.

I encourage you brethren as I myself have been encouraged. Go into that silent solitude and find some rest. It is in that quietness that you will hear God tell you, “I love you my dearest one. You are my beloved. I accept you just as you are and not as you should be. Because you will never be as you should be. You are mine and I am yours.”