The Lord is in the Silence

As I write these words there is a silence in my home, in the office where I write. Things are still. The hour has grown late. The words of the American poet Sara Teasdale come to mind:

We are anhungered after solitude,

Deep stillness pure of any speech or sound

In my youth I was quite the extrovert, always looking for some adventure with a group of friends. I wanted to be out and about to experience life instead of sitting at home. If things were too quiet it was maddening. However, over time I have come to appreciate silence. One of my favorite things to do is to sit outside late at night listening to the stillness in the air, the wind moving through the trees, and the calm cadence of quiet. Silence has become a wonderful refuge for me from the noise and demands of the day. In the silence, I have found the presence of the Lord.

Silence is mentioned in the scriptures. In the New Testament, the Gospel writers tell us that Jesus would often seclude himself to be alone with his father. In the Old Testament (1 Kings 19:11-13), Elijah is summoned to the mountain to stand in the presence of the Lord:

The Lord said, “Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.”

Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper. When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave.

Then a voice said to him, “What are you doing here, Elijah?”

In the previous chapter, we find the famous story of Elijah confronting the prophets of Baal on Mt. Carmel. You remember the story, don’t you?

Elijah goes before King Ahab and asks that the prophets of Baal meet him on Mt. Carmel. Elijah challenges the prophets to summon their god for a showdown with the Lord. The Lord sends fire from heaven to consume the sacrifice, proving that the Lord is God, not this pretender Baal. The prophets of Baal are put to the sword, and Elijah is vindicated. What happens next is mind-boggling. Elijah runs and hides because he hears that Ahab’s wife is
seeking after him to end his life. In the midst of that seclusion, the Lord calls Elijah out of the cave to stand in His presence.

In that moment, as the presence of the Lord passed by, the Lord was not in the ruckus of the wind, nor in the violent shaking of an earthquake. The Lord wasn’t even in the fire that followed. The Lord was in the sound of a gentle whisper. In the original, the Hebrew says a “voice, still and small or thin”. The picture here is one of stillness and silence more than violence and storm.

People often lament an inability to hear from God concerning the issues of life. Surrounded by the noise of a thousand voices and ten thousand distractions is it any wonder that it is difficult to hear the voice of the Lord? Or do we suppose that God only speaks to us in loud and boisterous ways? In the story of Elijah, we find that God’s voice is found in stillness and silence. When you and I are alone and away from the many distractions in our lives it is in those moments that we hear the voice of the Lord. This is, of course, unfamiliar and uncomfortable. We have grown accustomed to the noise. In some sense, we have come to depend on it to guard us from the interrogatories that silence brings. The truth, however, is that we need the silence, the stillness, to connect with God.

Perhaps this has never been truer than now. It seems to me that we live in an age of constant racket and commotion. There is always something going on in our lives. We move from one event to the other and from one interaction to another. Often enough we align ourselves to the rhythms of the persistent clatter thinking we will be distracted from the yearning of our souls to stand in the presence of the Lord.

Silence is an important gift because it removes us from distractions and gives us space to think about our lives and about our interactions with God. It is for this reason that we should carefully consider how we might carve out time to be alone with God in the stillness and silence.

I have come to appreciate the silence more now than at any time in my life. I invite you to make time to be alone, away, and silent. It is there, not in the wind or the earthquake or the fire, that you will discover what it means to live in the presence of the Lord.

Adam Thornton, Senior Pastor