Choosing Silence.

DEVOTIONALS | SHANNON MILLER.

“For God alone my soul waits in silence,” (Psalm 62:1a, ESV).

That statement may not resonate for many of us. We may not be able to point to the last time we were silent in God’s presence. Is this a symptom of the digital age? Maybe, and maybe not.

In the 1920s, Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote, “We flee silence. We race from activity to activity to avoid having to be alone with ourselves for even a moment, to avoid having to look at ourselves in the mirror.” He went on to say that we fear an eye-to-eye encounter with God in the quiet, in which He might disturb our comfortable lives and ask something of us.

Perhaps the avoidance of silence is a symptom not of the times, but of our humanity. Our carnal nature slinks away from the introspective honesty of quiet times, and the nearness of God in prayerful moments. But our new nature in Christ longs for these moments as spiritual food. “Silence serves at least two great purposes: it exposes us again to the greatness, wisdom, and trustworthiness of God, and it exposes us to ourselves – the sins that still entangle us, the lies that have influenced us, the grace that has eluded us, the chains that still bind us,” says Marshall Segal. “God has filled silence with an unusual capacity to instill reality, eternity, and stability in our hearts.”

In Psalm 62, David declares in verse 1 that he is waiting in silence, he spends the next few verses considering his troubles, and then he commands his soul again to wait in silence for the Lord, his refuge and salvation. Silence is a choice, and we must reach for it if we want to be renewed. In the words of Alexander MacLaren, “As the flowers follow the sun, and silently hold up their petals to be tinted and enlarged by his shining, so must we, if we would know the joy of God, hold our souls, wills, hearts, and minds still before Him, whose voice commands, whose love warms, whose truth makes fair, our whole being.” I invite you to listen to today’s song and for the next five minutes quiet your soul in His wonderful presence.