It’s the middle of the night and everyone is asleep except me. The house is completely silent and the only noises outside are some crickets, A/C’s blowing and the occasional car driving down a street that I can’t see. I love the night. I love the quiet. It’s the type of quiet that somehow makes me feel completely alone and right at home at the same time. Some may think I love the night because I have 3 small children that are anything but quiet when they are awake. The truth is I’ve always loved the night; I’ve always been a night owl.
I know a lot of people that feel the same sense of peace in the morning. The sunrise, a cup of coffee and the sound of birds chirping, I can certainly understand where they are coming from, but I am certainly not a fan. In fact, if you wake me up before 9:30am understand we are not friends. Actually at that time, we are pretty much mortal enemies. Granted I’ll forgive you in about 30 minutes…O.K. probably more like an hour, but in that moment it is best to just give me a little bit of space.
Late at night I’m able to do a lot of things I can’t do at any other time. I can relax with no thought of what the day will bring since the day is already over. I can sit outside and smoke a cigar, play a video game or watch a movie that my wife hates. (So what if I like to watch “The Fast and Furious” sometimes…don’t judge.) However, the best part of it is just being able to sit in the silence and work through my thoughts.
Don’t worry I’m not writing this just to fill you in on my moonlit pastimes, but instead I want to talk about silence and what it can bring. What makes it so important? We live in a society that has been set to warp speed. We don’t want to wait for anything and information often moves so quickly that we move on to the next story before we have even processed the first. We move fast, talk fast, and typically eat fast. After all, we have things to do, places to go and people to see. We want everything, including our answers, right now!
The worst part about all of this? We treat God the same exact way. We pray then eat, go to sleep, get back to work or maybe get on Facebook. We read the bible or our daily verse, check it off our to-do list and then rush off to continue our day. I’ve heard some preachers challenge their congregation to spend 15 minutes in the Bible everyday. I used to think that was great, but today I’m thinking what if my wife only spent 15 minutes with me a day? I would be extremely frustrated and we wouldn’t exactly be close. What if all she did was thank me for loving her, ask me to keep her healthy and safe before she walked away to ignore me the rest of the day. That wouldn’t be a marriage; that wouldn’t even be a friendship. It wouldn’t take long before we would be completely out of touch with each other.
Psalms 37:7 says, “Be silent in the Lord’s presence and wait patiently for Him.” Reading the Bible and praying are both great. I’m certainly not saying to stop doing either of them. But if you’re time with God is filled with you just reading and talking, you aren’t giving Him much of a chance to speak into your life concerning what you read or to respond to your prayers. I say forget the 15 minutes and just make sure you spend time with God. Make sure in that time you sit quietly and wait patiently for God to speak to you. We have all had conversations with somebody that talked non-stop. It would seem they don’t even need to breathe. They ask 20 questions, but never give you a chance to respond. They may even answer for you. I’m betting most of us don’t enjoy those conversations; after all it wasn’t really dialogue. They just had a 10 minute monologue and you happened to be the audience. You never had a chance to respond so you clearly didn’t matter. Anyone could have been there and the “conversation” would have been exactly the same. Maybe we should stop our monologues with God. He is the Alpha and Omega, the great I AM; I most certainly want to know what He has to say.
If God lived in a house on your street how would you choose to talk to Him? Would you send Him a text as you continued your busy day? Would you call Him on your way to and from work abruptly getting off the phone when you reached your destination? Or would you go to His house and sit on His couch and spend as much time with Him as you possibly could everyday: Having long conversations, asking a thousand questions that you have always wondered about, getting lost in His eternal love and grace. I’m betting your answer is the last one, right? So why are so many of us still only sending text messages when God allows us to spend as much time in His presence as we want?
The best time for me is the quiet of the night. Maybe for you it’s early in the morning or maybe it is an afternoon tea. It doesn’t matter what time you choose as long as we aren’t checking it off our list and rushing off to the next thing we need to check off. Allow time for God to respond. You never know, He may give you a better list.
When’s the last time you enjoyed the silence?
I get caught in between so much. Sometimes I’m so determined for my time with God not to be a legalistic check on my to-do list that I never do it. Sometimes I focus so much on wanting to have “enough” time to really pray and listen that I don’t take any time at all. I think there has to be balance and I struggle with that balance. I do need days when I’m resting in His presence and listening and really PRAYING. I also need to continue in the spiritual discipline of reading God’s word and beginning my day with thanksgiving. Gosh- I’m so glad God already knows I’m not perfect. haha
Yeah, I understand what you mean. I would agree that there is a balance. Spending time with God is certainly on my to-do list everyday, but I think it aLl comes down to where your heart is. Is it on your to-do list for a sense of personal accomplishment? I struggled with this for awhile. Just skimming the pages reading the chapter as fast as I could so I could tell myself I did it. Or is it on your list because spending time in God’s word and in His presence is a priority in you’re life.