Silence, it can echo through our minds louder than the loudest of alarms. Most people flee from silence with the same ferocity you flee from an approaching danger. Silence can be a threatening reality, and most do all they can to drown it out. Turn up the music, turn on the T.V, pick out a movie to watch, or binge watch Netflix. We say we are escaping boredom or relaxing, but most times we are simply escaping silence. Silence can be fearsome because silence always speaks. There are three voices that speak out of the silent times when no one is around.
The first voice is your own, which varies as much as the person it belongs too. Your inner voice is as unique as you are, coming in a flood of hurried thoughts or slowly drifting along as with the wind. Your inner voice, or “thought life”, is one of the first voices to speak loudly when times of undistracted silence happen. The second voice, which often takes advantage to speak loudly in time of silence, is the voice of the accuser. Though it may often be mistaken as your own, those inward thoughts of unworthiness and despair are fiery darts of the enemy. It is important as a believer to recognize the voice of the enemy because we have the authority to silence him. The third voice that speaks is the most wonderful by far- that is the voice of the Spirit or the voice of God. And it is for this voice that we must seek silence in our lives. Because more often than not the Lord speaks in a still small voice. As we see in the story of Elijah.
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““Go out, and stand on the mountain before the Lord.” And behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind tore into the mountains and broke the rocks in pieces before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire a still small voice. ”
In one of our recent blog posts, we wrote about what it means to flee. Now, let us focus on the important role of silence in the life of a Christian. Too often we may flee to the secret place of waiting on the Lord only to drown out the voice of the Lord with many other things. Music for example, though it can be a great tool to usher us into the presence of God can also be used as the end instead of the means. In other words we might go away to “be with God”, listen to some great music, and then go back to our day thinking we’ve just had a lovely quiet time, but in reality we never actually meet with God. Sometimes in order to hear from the Lord we need to withdraw and wait in silence for His voice, like Elijah in the cave or John the Baptist in the wilderness. If we want the voice of God to be the loudest voice in our minds and out of our lips we must let silence and the presence of the Lord permeate our lives.
This is especially important for Disciple Makers, after all we don’t want to replicate ourselves, but make disciples of Jesus. When we do speak, we want to speak the words of the Lord and in order to do that we must have a season of shaping our voice in silence. We should desire to be like Elijah in the cave, and John the baptist in the desert, and Jesus in the wilderness for forty days. If we are to be a voice crying out “prepare the way of the Lord”, we must first learn to silence the voice of the accuser and even our own voice. We must learn to be still on the inside so that out of the silence within the Word of the Lord can come forth through us, to bring salvation to our families, friends, neighbors and even to those at the ends of the earth.
READ HOW SILENCE WITH GOD CHANGED THIS BACKGROUND MUSLIM BELIEVER’S LIFE.
Navid was depressed most of his life. He spent his days in a small dark room, wallowing in shame and depression, accused by the enemy and his own dark thoughts. After one of our Disciple Makers gave him a Bible, he prayed to Jesus, alone in his room. Read the powerful story of what happened next by clicking below.