Silence

Thanksgiving Break is upon us.  Last night we had a rare evening where all six of us were in the same house and in the same room.  We watched the Dallas Cowboy game, flipped to other uneventful shows during the commercials and took breaks to get up and get a few things done. 

At one point on a break, I got up to do the dishes.  I was talking across the room while I did them, probably about the most amazing catch I had ever seen by Odell Beckman Jr.  There were two other conversations going on at the same time about deer hunting, Christmas lists, and what we were going to do this week.  My husband, who has to work, just sat in his chair with a puzzled look on his face.  I caught his eye when I looked up at my daughter to focus on what she was saying to me back across the room. 

At that point, my husband in a quiet voice, so quiet and calm that it was a miracle we even heard him, said “Everyone in this house is talking at once….I think I am going to bed.”  He did not leave us, but sure did make us laugh as usual because it was true. I am fully accustomed to the noise. It is normal to me; however, it was borderline too much for him. 

Last week I had to administer a benchmark STARR test.  Our campus tries to assimilate the “real” test so it really is a super duper silent environment.  I wonder if the silence is a distraction really.  It is so oddly quiet and so different from anything that we are used to.

I journaled about it later.  I wrote “Silence…it is really an odd thing.  It is even really possible in the year of 2014…with technology?  How often are we really silent? I mean not just from noise, but also from any handheld device that we are reading and scrolling through just for fun?  Maybe silence today needs to be defined and include both the ears not hearing anything and the brain not doing anything.  The Lord is sometimes silent too.  Silence is really odd, but OKAY.”

Silence is contrary to how most of us live today, but I think it matters because of the verse that says “Be still and know that I am God” from Psalms 46:10. That verse tells me that silence is a MUST!  It is an absolute.  How can we hear from the quiet, still voice of the Holy Spirit living in us if we never allow ourselves to be quiet and still? (I bet the devil loves the distracting world we live in)   

Maybe when we make our to-do list for the holiday season, silence and quiet time should be on the list and at the top of everyday!  How else can we navigate through this crazy life without knowing and hearing the voice of the Lord?  He speaks through His Word, prayer, in nature, and sometimes He even speaks to us in silence.

I once heard a statement made by a preacher that I have never forgotten.  He said that a teacher is silent during a test and that the Lord too can sometimes be silent during a test with his students, meaning us!  If you are quiet and ready to hear from the Lord during this season and you feel like He is silent, that is OK.  Hold onto what you know is true! He is there.  He is your teacher.

Christmas season for me does not begin with Black Friday, it begins with a celebration in the quietness of my own heart because I have been given a gift.  The gift is the greatest relationship I will ever have. It began with the birth of Jesus and knowing that daily I can be STILL AND KNOW that He is God.   You have been given the gift too.  Have you accepted it?