The Sound of Silence

How many people breath a sigh of relief when they have achieved a moment's quiet? Mothers, fathers... wish for the blessed peace that comes after their children are tucked away in bed. College students pack libraries during exam time for a place to study without distraction. At night, a silent room is more often preferred when attempting to fall asleep than a noisy tv or radio.

Me? I enjoy noise. I want to be distracted. Distract away, oh great noise! Please keep me from getting private time, because trust me... I get enough. Being a single woman in her late twenties who enjoys being a homebody tends get a girl a lot more of that quiet/private time than she'd like. So whether it's longing for the sounds of engine whistles and rumbling train cars to pass by on the nearby tracks, or turning on my stereo the minute the engine of my vehicle roars to life.... or listening to the bubbling of my turtle tank as I lay in bed, I find myself always looking for ways to fill my ears. If I don't have something to distract me, the lack of sounds suddenly remind me that all I have is me. And then suddenly...the sound of silence becomes deafening.

So it's interesting after reading the scripture, 1Kings 19:9-12, the perspective God gives on silence.

"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 the fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper."

As Elijah stood at the mountain of Horeb, he was in a depressed place. He longed to hear God. Wanted His noise. Wanted to experience the sound of nature at its most frightening. Standing there, seeing their power and destruction, he expected it. Expected the roaring judgment on the mountain where the Israelites were judged once and given the 10 commandments by the Lord. No longer did he want to worry about the shambles he believed his life to be. He just wanted the consequences. And yet the Lord, in all the noise was absent. It was in the end, when all had settled, in a whisper, in the sound of silence... that He finally spoke.

Can we only find that kind of silence in the wake of something so dramatic as what Elijah experienced? No, I don't think so. I don't think God needs to quiet our environment or nature to speak, I think He longs for the silence in us, so then we may hear Him. And I can imagine that is so very hard to find. Our minds are so busy with family, friends, jobs, bills, we rarely experience real silence. But I've come to realize, whether we intentionally hide from it or not, it is in the stillness within us that He speaks most clearly. Really speaks. And unfortunately for me, I find that I hear Him in the less than happy times, like Elijah did. Maybe it's because it is when we are most humbled. We are finally in the place where we realize we are alone without Him. No matter whether you're married or not married or have tons of friends or are surrounded by children, without Him? You're alone. And sometimes we need to get past ourselves and our lives to see that.

I think for me I want to find God or hear Him when I'm happy. I want to maintain this humility and need for him I feel when I'm depressed and apply it to the good times too. In the times when I'm surrounded by noise. Because He can speak then too. I mean He's God, right? He can speak whenever He chooses to. He doesn't need it to be quiet, we only need to hear Him. And it's not His fault if we're making our lives so noisy that were not listening.

Doesn't it make you wonder if He's speaking more than we even realize, but that we're just too involved in our lives and ourselves to care? It make me want to be more attentive and less self- involved that's for sure. Maybe if I spend more time trying to quiet down my noisy head, I won't feel so lonely. In the moment it gets quiet, instead of hearing the 'sound of silence,' maybe I will hear Him whisper to my heart.