SILENCE IS GOLDEN by Pastor Rick Sams

I found a post that is worth reposting.

Fear is one of our most basic and prevalent emotions. We don’t usually think that silence is something to be afraid of.

But in Minneapolis there is a room that absorbs 99.9% of any sound in that room. It’s the world famous echo free chamber of the Orfield Laboratories. It’s: “The quietest place on earth.” Total silence can warp a person’s spatial orientation so the only safe posture in said room is sitting because one’s balance goes out of whack.

But it’s not falling that people fear, it’s the deadly total silence. NO ONE has been able to stay in that room for more than 45 minutes. So what are we afraid of? Being alone with our thoughts? Having to face ourselves instead of all the other distractions? Realizing we don’t make very good company?

I don’t have the answer why we seem to fear silence, and neither has anyone else offered an explanation that I know of - except God.

It’s in the silence we best hear His voice, and that scares a lot of people. I know many make noises about wanting to hear God speak to them, specifically to know His will for their lives. But though they hear, they don’t listen; meaning obey.

In I Kings 19:1-13 the unparalleled prophet had just come through an amazing victory. Now he’s on the run…defeated. He’s fled to the wilderness to escape an evil queen that had put out a contract on his life. It was in a cave Elijah expected to hear God’s voice amidst all kinds of noise—a mountain shattering wind, an earthquake, a raging fire. But God wasn’t to be heard in those sounds of nature raging. His voice came in the silence. There he received a fresh calling from God. 

It was in the barren wilderness where Jesus clarified his history changing calling. He spent an entire night alone listening for THE Voice. Only then did he choose the 12 men who would change the world: His disciples. “Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed."

On the backside of a desert Moses was sent back to the place he ran from 40 years earlier to now lead God’s people, Israel, out of slavery and into the freedom of the Promised Land.

So what are you afraid of? There are 365 “Fear nots” in the Bible. The most common follow up promise is: “For I will be with you!”

Go seek a quiet time alone with the One who promised he would never leave us, a place to hear from the One who most often speaks in the silence. Even if you can’t stand the silence for more than 45 minutes what you hear from Him will be worth the discomfort.