Silence! Quiet! Be Still! The Bible says in Revelation 8:1, “And when the Lamb broke open the seventh seal, there was silence for about a half an hour in heaven.” In Joshua 6:10 it says, “Joshua commanded the people, you shall not shout or let your voice be heard, nor shall any word proceed out of your mouth until the day I tell you to shout. Then you shall shout!” Matthew 27:45-46 says, “Now from the sixth hour there was darkness (silence) over all the land unto the ninth hour. And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice…” Genesis 1:1-3 “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. And the earth was without form and void; and darkness (silence) was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said…”
Can you see the pattern of God? Silence precedes the shout. The call to silence is a call to prepare for the trumpet of the Lord to shout, to announce, to declare. We have been given the honor, the privilege, the joy of being told by the God of heaven to be still and know that He is God (Psalm 46:10). Who are we, that the Lord of all Creation, would so love the world this much that He would shut down all our external idols, so we can see our internal idol (self)? If only we could be honest with ourselves, we love to be heard, we love to be seen, we love to be known by others. We must have a zoom prayer meeting, we have to do parking lot church, we must be on You Tube, we cannot handle the command to be silent. But why? What in the silence scares us so much? What do we not want to hear, what do we not want to see, what are we actually running from?
Silence is a gift only God can give to us. For it is in the silence you or others may realize you hear your voice more than His voice; you prophesy your opinion and put His name on it; you don’t really know the Lord and yet you want to lead people to the Lord. Silence is a gift from a Living God. Silence is the only place you will discover who you really are. Silence reveals to you the truth that will set you free. Silence strips you of all the fig leaves of noise, so you can realize you are naked apart from Him even though the noise made you believe you were clothed.
Silence is not punishment; silence is the love we have been looking for. Silence is seeing, silence is hearing, silence is knowing and being known. Silence is the greatest gift God could have given a world that He already gave His One and Only Son for. Silence, it is the modus operandi of God before He is about to do something new. It is the stillness we need to re-calibrate our hearts, to realign our relationships, to recognize what is truly valuable. Silence, the gift that is always been available, but few were willing to pay the price to obtain and now it has been given to you. May you know, in the silence, what you thought you knew in the noise, God Loves You, but God also wants you to love Him, not in being seen, but in the silence.
2 Chronicles 16:9 says, “For the eyes of the LORD run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show Himself strong on behalf of those whose heart is loyal to Him.” God knows what is really going on in our hearts, silence shares with us what He already knows, so we can adjust accordingly. Silence is a gift from a loving God, a good Father. Thank you, Lord, for again calling us to hear Habakkuk 2:18-20 “What use is an idol, that a craftsman should carve it—or an image, a teacher of lies? For its maker trusts in his own creation; he makes idols that cannot speak. Woe to him who says to wood, ‘Awaken!’ or to silent stone, ‘Come alive!’ Can it give guidance? Behold, it is overlaid with gold and silver, yet there is no breath in it at all. But the LORD is in His holy temple; let all the earth be silent before Him.” Silence!
Lisa Great 