For many people, the ways of God and the church seem particularly silent. But it’s the silence, that seems so formidable to some, that’s so powerful in it’s under current. As a church, we need to help people understand and thrive in the silence.
For beginning believers or even seekers, a silent God may provide roadblocks or hinderances to growth. Why does God sometimes seem silent? The Word of God is silent to many because it’s translated from an ancient language whose background and culture seem to make it impossible to understand. To many old and new Christians, a church service or a group meeting with Christians is a time to put on their church face and act like nothing's wrong. What happens in the church building doesn’t relate to them personally. Yes, the music’s okay, and a few people shook their hand. But most people in the building "can’t relate to my culture, my mode of thinking, or my lifestyle."
A friend related his views of churches. He knows their rules, but never attends. He once had a business meeting at a Mormon church. He walked in with a cup of coffee and found out quickly that any caffeine was not allowed. Prior to that he saw a basketball hoop set in a sanctuary and couldn’t understand how people could even use the words basketball and sanctuary in the same sentence let alone the same room. The friend knew enough about churches to respect the idea of a sanctuary. But the concept of knowing God or hearing from him was non-existent. The ways of religious people were not silent in his life, but a true understanding of who God is beyond the environment of a church was virtually non-existent and definitely non-applicable to his life. God was for all-purposes silent or maybe silenced?
For many people the ways of God seem particularly silent in relating his love for the world. Perhaps the garden scene in Genesis seems harsh. Who would banish someone for eating an apple? When there are wars and rumors of wars and untold numbers of natural disasters, some ask what kind of God would allow hundreds of people to be destroyed if He had the power to stop it? Is there really a even a God?
Yet it’s these seemingly silent areas of God when discussed and understood that are most powerful. We always begin and end with John 3:16, “For God so loved the world.” Learning how God shows his love through allowing human choice and defining experiences speaks volumes.
But how does that fit into our current culture? I meandered through several audio and video entertainment stores. I looked at the aisles of items whose sounds screamed out the desires and values of our society. The neon signs and digitized advertisements spoke silently yet powerfully to people who hardly noticed their irritating blinking and bold colors. We’re used to loudspeakers and billboards demanding our attention. But when God speaks in 10-point type to a culture used to brazen voices, his words are virtually silent.
Helping people thrive in the silence is the goal. We can help them thrive in the silence by first breaking the silence in their own lives; second by helping them embrace the silence, and third by teaching them to refute the silence.
Breaking the silence
When relating to God’s Word, silence happens for several reasons: 1) because of sin in a life that separates man from God, 2) inability to quiet oneself and listen, 3) inability to quiet the voices around you, and 4) lack of understanding.
Redemption means bought with a price. Our sin had a price tag--the death of Christ on the cross. Romans 6:23 says, “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” (KJV)
Sin separates man from God but Jesus bridged the gap with the gift of his own life. “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. (Romans 3:23, 24, NIV))
Therefore, faith in God and believing in Christ the son of God is the first step in breaking the silence. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in him shall not perish but have everlasting life.” (John 3:16, KJV)
If you have not taken this step, then God cannot accomplish the revealing and restoring work through his Word. His Word will be silent to your soul. Once we ask God to forgive our sins and believe, silencing the voices around us becomes the goal. Habakkuk reminds us the “Lord is in his holy temple, let all the earth be silent before him.” (Habakkuk 2:20) Hearing involves silencing the earth or world around us. We need to silence the voices around us and listen. The world, a euphemism for or a picture of sin, wants to distract us from hearing God. The more time we spend pursuing the pleasures of a sinful world, the more voices we will hear that will keep us from God. So, to silence the voices around us we must systematically abandon the worldly pursuits for pursuing God. If the television and the computer keep me from God, if the voices on these objects speak louder than his Word, than I must leave behind these pursuits for pursuing God. We abandon the voices that speak louder than his Word.
God desires that we know him, that we have a friendship with him. All relationships require time. The Bible describes our relationship with God as a marriage. What are the biggest problems in marriages? Communication and respect.
In order to break the silence, communication needs to happen with God. This means silencing our one-way prayers. No longer are prayers a give-me session. Instead, they become a time of open communication. No longer do we read the Bible for what we can get. We silence our minds to listen to what God wants to give.
Ken Gire in his book Windows of the Soul says, “Windows of the soul is a way of seeing that begins with respect. The way we show respect is to give it a second look, a look not of the eyes but of the heart.”
The same thought applies to listening; the way we show respect is to enter God’s Word with that second look, that extra moment to meditate, that desire to understand with our heart. It is allowing the Holy Spirit to reveal the Word to our heart.
Lack of understanding is bridged in two ways, first through communication and respect as mentioned above and second through study. Be willing to attend classes, read books, study ten different versions of the Scripture, anything to gain understanding.
Embracing the Silence
Although breaking the silence in our lives is essential, we must also embrace the silence. It’s the text translated from an ancient language that’s a beautiful piece of classical literature worthy of being studied. It’s the worship in a church service, different from a secular concert, that’s essential in one’s relationship to God. God’s characteristics of justice and love combine to create a God worthy of worship.
All of these thoughts that seem to silence the ways of God are truly biblical reasons to embrace the ways of God. Part of a church’s role is to help people recognize these seemingly silent parts of the church experience as beautiful and powerful. God works powerfully in the silence.
Living through an illness I did not know I had was the hardest part of my life, but it forced me to embrace the silence around me and find the voice of God. I had two reactions to this illness. Often at 4 AM I would wake up with a tingling sensation over my body. I asked God what is this? I responded by getting up to pray and study the Word of God. In an otherwise rudimentary life of caring for five children-feeding, cleaning, and constantly at home caring for them--I found a time to seek God and embrace being alone with Him. At other times, it was too hard mentally and physically to get out of bed, I would pray regularly for about three hours. I would finally have the stamina to get up and face the day. I eventually found out that I had bradycardia which reduced the flow of the blood in my body, thus the night sensations. I also had arrythmia which would cause uncontrolled tiredness. But through these illnesses I learned to embrace the silent times with God and saw Him work in so many ways in my life. I needed God.
Embracing the silence around us so we can seek God more clearly helps us refute the often deafening, devouring silence that the evil wants to use to destroy us. When someone finds silence as a devourer or menace that allows thoughts of self-harm or other destructive ideas to come in, this needs to be refuted, so God can have a voice.
Refuting the Silence
Thriving in the silence includes breaking the silence and embracing the silence, and lastly refuting the silence. Once we have broken the silence in our own lives and we have begun to embrace the beauty of the silence within the ways of the church and in our own devotional times, we can begin on our own to refute the destructiveness that sometimes comes with silence.
Where we once only saw silence, we can now find God. The silence around us and inside us, longs for life and fulfillments. I refute the silence that leads to my own stinking thinking by reciting God's Word or singing praise songs. Psalm 103:1 says, "Bless the Lord, O my soul." In Psalm 43:5, David speaks to his soul asking it, "Why so downcast, oh my soul?" We need to speak to our soul and refute the downward spirals by singing and worshipping. To refute the silence, gives God a chance to speak to our innermost beings.
We proactively break, embrace, and refute the silence, so we can hear from God on a regular basis. New churchgoers need help in beginning to apply the ways of a seemingly silent church to their lives so that God can speak to them individually.
Helping people thrive int the silence in their lives will bring them to a closer relationship with God. I've seen churchgoers become lackadaisical and the silence pervades. For newcomer, the foreigner in a new land, silence resonates. But it's in the silence that God often works the most powerfully. I’m praying for silence that breaks the silence. I'm praying for silence that encourages embracing the written Word of God. I'm praying for silence, that chases out, that refutes all reoccurring destructive voices and opens souls to His life-giving voice. We must thrive in the silence to live.
