Be silent.
Be still.
Be quiet.
These are the simple things our kindergarten teachers taught us and learning silence could be most helpful as adults. Do you remember sitting on the carpet as a 5 year old and noticing that your teacher did not have to say anything? They got quiet and made a simple signal to quickly snag your attention. Whether that be a finger over the mouth or a hand raised in the air. If you noticed, you would mimic them so they knew you were listening. It is funny how silence can speak so loudly. Yet, somewhere along the way, we forget to retreat to the place where we get to be silent and still. We rush and push and make our way by being heard in so many different facets of life. It is the only way to get somewhere and to be someone of significance, right? (that is dripping with sarcasm)
Have you ever done resistance training with elastic bands? Usually, an elastic band is put around your waist and someone stands behind you holding the band to create resistance for up to 5-15 seconds as you try to run and pump as hard as you can. This type of exercise increases your capacity for what is called "Fast Twitch Muscle Fibers" to engage. This helps you to react quicker in speed and agility. Muscles do not flex (beyond popular belief)... muscles lengthen and shorten. This type of training allows one's muscles to lengthen and shorten in explosive movements at a faster rate.
Silence acts the same way. When a person exercises silence, it creates a physiological and spiritual response to listen at a quicker rate. They hear things that they normally would not hear when they are part of the busy world around them. It builds a spiritual muscle in you that preaching, teaching, talking, or even praying cannot build. Silence does not build the muscle in your tongue. It actually builds the muscle that keeps your tongue from speaking loosely. It builds the muscle for your ears to hear what is unsaid.
Over the past 3 days, I have lost my voice. Completely. My voice is one of the things that I use the most. I have sat in silence the past 3 days... some moments in agony because it seems as though the more I rest it, it gets weaker. There are other moments where it feels like the pressure is off and I can just "be". I am an introvert by nature and so it has been refreshing to have time by myself, but there is another side to me that is a teacher by nature as well. And all I want to do is teach. Like you, before my identity can be anything else, I have to remember that I am a child of the Most High God. I am the beloved of God.
I was quickly reminded that I have muted silence in my life. God is always beckoning me to come to the table each day for Him to feed me. He does not want to feed me for the sake of feeding others. Those in ministry can quickly think God speaks to them only for them to share with others what He has said. Most of the time, His nourishment is for our own soul... the healing of our own hearts... the breaking of our own chains.
One of my very sweet and dear friends, Kristin, and I have had many conversations about creating margin. With gracious words and such a kind spirit, her wisdom proceeds her years. She talks as if she has been living for hundreds of years--not in an arrogant way...just someone who walks with Jesus. When a person walks with Him, there is just something that they carry: humility from experience. She is a deep advocate for Sabbath and a woman of wisdom who looks at her calendar and knows which weeks she has margin and which weeks she knows she must back off from certain things. As Kristin would say, "I don't know that I am by any means good at it, but I definitely care about it."
So today, I ask you, how are you creating margin for silence in your life? How are you backing away from everything to slip away and to be silent before the Lord? How are you exercising that muscle? Have you created space to go and sit with Him at the table and to be filled by His Presence today? Or do you feel distracted and are so many things pressing in on you that you are muting the silence in your life?
I do not believe there is a "one-way" method to creating silence. Every person's life looks different with demands and responsibilities that are distinct from one another. That is okay. God is calling each of us to have moments, like Jesus, to go up on the mountain by yourself and to pray...to listen.
Be silent.
Be still.
Be quiet.
By God's grace,
Cortney Rae