And, this is what I opened up my Bible Study book to today.
Really. Not even kidding.
The whole chapter is about learning how to be silent before God. The exercise is to spend 10 minutes a day in silence, doing nothing, thinking about nothing, just listening. They suggest then carrying that over into your daily life so that so “say only what is needed in conversation” and “continually monitor how you feel about ‘wasting’ time for God and refraining from talking.” It talks about the significance of silence and how we are in a culture that values noise over silence.
I liked this particular paragraph from Thomas Merton from The Climate of Monastic Prayer
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“The true contemplative is not one who prepares his mind for a particular message that he wants or expects to hear, but is one who remains empty because he knows that he can never expect to anticipate the words that will transform his darkness into light. He does not even anticipate a special kind of transformation. He does not demand light instead of darkness. He waits on the Word of God in silence, and, when he is ‘answered,’ it is not so much by a word that bursts into his silence. It is by his silence itself, suddenly, inexplicably revealing itself to him as a word of great power, full of the voice of God.”
May I stay still in my silence to hear that voice. It’s so hard for me to do that–stillness. I’ve got the silence part–though not by choice. But, the stillness part….very very hard for me. There just always seems to be the tyranny of the urgent, something always needing my attention, my thoughts, my effort. Clearly though, the Lord is desiring to speak to me. My voice is quiet. Now, I must quiet my heart, quiet my spirit so that I can hear Him.