When I first started going to prayer meetings, I wasn’t saved and I was really out of my comfort zone when it came to church and body life and worship – anything that had to do with God. It didn’t take much to freak me out. Now, Martha regularly opens meetings with “Let’s all get quiet and listen and see what we hear.” In the two years before I was actually born again, this group silence happened many times. And I was fairly undone by it every time. It was so completely unnatural to me, and I often came close to having a panic attack. Looking back, I think that the silence really riled my demons.
Once I was saved, that reaction of panic and anger and fear was gone. I began to look forward to those times of silence. It was a gift to lay at the Lord’s feet every errant thought and concern and question and doubt rattling around in my head, and just be QUIET. I loved the peace that came with simply breathing in and exhaling out and waiting for the Holy Spirit to come and move and speak. I still do.
The Hidden Sounds of Silence
The Lord reminded me of this spiritual before-and-after experience with silence, and it has astonished me. Once again He’s asked me to step away from the internet and TV and It’s been a weird couple of days for me. The clamor in my mind is dying down, and silence is filling that space. In this new quiet, I find that I have a growing awareness of what I’m hearing. And what I’m choosing to listen to, and therefore hearing, really matters.
How much of my unbelief is fueled by the noise in my life? If my time spent in quiet with God is dwarfed by my time spent listening to the cacophony of the world, then the result is always going to be fear, I think. Because when I’m not looking at Him or hearing Him, evil seems bigger and more pervasive than the reach of Love. Hope leaches out of me without my even noticing, until one day I wake up and I’m wracked with despair – and I can’t figure out why. I can’t point to the source of despair because it isn’t a single event. It’s hundreds of seemingly insignificant choices and happenings and words and songs and people and places. They all become a deluge that drowns my peace and roars in my ears. Without silence, the noise becomes all I can see and hear.
SILENCE HEALS THE WOUNDS OF NOISE
Silence is healing for the heart and mind. It is rest and restoration for the senses and the spirit. Silence is fertile ground for focus and gazing and quiet contemplation. The enemy hates silence, and it shows. The world has never been louder, and humans have never been sicker. We NEED silence. And we have it less than ever.
It is God’s love that asked me to give up my noise. After only three days, I find that it’s not nearly so difficult to focus or to fall asleep. I have the Lord’s own joy again this morning; His inexplicable, buoyant embrace of this wonderful life! My God is in the silence I so desperately need.
Take My yoke upon you and learn of Me, for I am gentle (meek) and humble (lowly) in heart, and you will find rest (relief and ease and refreshment and recreation and blessed quiet) for your souls.
Matthew 11:29 AMPC
It’s always amazing to me how our Lord speaks the same word to so many. All the reactions to your post just emphasize how much He does so. He started last night reminding me again of the blessing and value of silence. Thank you for your obedience. I love you dear girl
Absolutely amazed at today’s devotion. Like Tammy, I had read Oswald Chambers today and knew God was speaking to my heart even tho I have been surrounded by His silence. And then to read this…He is so gracious and so very kind to meet us right where we are and to confirm His loving silence over our lives! Thank you Jennifer. Your prompting to post this is so precious and so timely. He’s like that, isn’t He? Speaking in our silence and in His silence. And I prefer His voice to the world’s or mine. Every time. So today I… Read more »
Read this before going to work this morning and it was a further nudge in the direction of sole focus and intimacy with the Lord. Sometimes I take the daily walk and fellowship with the Lord for granted because of my positional reality with Him. He is ever drawing us into the daily experience of His voice and love, intimacy with Him. So as I get in the car driving to work I turn on the local radio station and as my car fills with noise I remember this post , the one I just read , and I turn… Read more »
Well, I’ve typed my first line multiple times yet no words seem to express my awe and gratitude of and to Him. For just over a week now He has been addressing the issue of “silence” with me in the most creative ways. He is so patient! First there was unfolding revelation during a precious time of silence that He and I shared, a taste of what could be. Then nothing. Just nothing. I begged for repentance believing an unrecognized sin to be the cause of my not hearing. Still nothing. Then you post this blog Jen! I didn’t notice… Read more »
AHHHHHH, you have brought heaven’s message down to earth for me. BLESSINGS from the GOD and FATHER of lights be upon you.
“Because when I’m not looking at Him or hearing Him, evil seems bigger and more pervasive than the reach of Love.” In the silence God re-wires us and does His work in our hearts and minds. Thanks Jennifer.
Seems as if many of us are getting the same lesson. Allowing our minds to sit under a continuous barrage of the world’s arrogant answers to every catastrophe, via all of the news networks, we can’t bring every thought into captivity, and experience the renewing of our minds. Turning it off allows us to experience the perfect peace that comes with having our minds stayed on Him. No newscast is worth losing that for. God bless you for sharing so honestly, Jen.
“It is God’s love that asked me to give up my noise.” “The Lord your God is with you, He is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, He will quiet you with His love.” Zephaniah 3:17 “He will quiet you with His love…..”, all we have to do is ask. This is what you have done, Jennifer: just sitting still in His presence and asking for that blanket of peace, for that quietness and He is coming through with His promise. Such a precious, Father-heart He has toward you, Jennifer, and all who desire to gaze… Read more »
Too intense for words. In 1995 I was given a prophetic word “Your strength is in your silence and confidence.” Many years later I realized it is from Isaiah 30:15. But the second part of verse 15 says “but you would not have it.” That’s been me oh so noisy. Forgive me Lord. When will I grow up and stop taking milk but take your meat?
That word in Isaiah is what Jen is digesting by the Spirit. I read it for the first time and received recently too as a big call.
“In quietness and confidence is your strength.”
We like to go to every possible place and stress, but quietness and confidence (the HUGE word of REST), we do not want.
But Jesus Christ does come, and He destroys our stress dwelling places and anxieties for the sake of His name.
The Lord gave me that very same verse this morning. Thank You Lord for the confirmation
Oh Jen Jen Jen! Another confirmation of what HE has been telling me and what I HAVE been doing. It is a spirit filled place when I sit and BE with Him. And the blessings and riches that are flowing from that quiet are mysteriously, shockingly new to me. It is a richness that words CANNOT explain. AND HE won’t let me OUT of that silence! Praise the Lord!
I am blown away at how timely this message is! It touches two areas for me. One is that I had been watching the news sometimes at great length, and the Lord has been trying to shorten my time with it. He wanted me to spend more of my time focusing on Him. The other is just last night in prayer, for the first time in a long long time, the Lord wanted me to stop everything and just be silent before him. I felt such a peace deep inside when I obeyed! Thank you Jennifer for your post. It… Read more »
Such Peace came through, thank you, Jennifer.
Luke 10:41-42 : )
Thanks Jennifer for allowing us a window into your journey! It is beautiful and draws our attention to the One who invited you to go with Him.
I too have been a news junkie and while camping one time realized the lack of all the noise was a blessing to my soul . I started “news fasts” and came to a place similar to yours. I listen/watch less now and I am more inclined to pray the news the. Thank you Lord for revealing thisand thank you Jen for sharing this insight.