Noise

My good ness we live in such a noisy society!

It is so hard to find somewhere that is completely quite, I mean completely, and even when we do we crave for it to be noisy again.

I cant stand silence

It totally freaks me out. I went to a Quakers meeting once, I knew they had this silence thing going on but didn't really realise just what would happen. Well, literally, there were about 25-30 people sat in a circle in a hall, in COMPLETE SILENCE! The first two minutes were awkward, the next 88 were just a nightmare. I found it so uncomfortable. I just could not understand what people were doing or waiting for, I just wanted to talk, or sing or hear someone else talking, something. But no, just silence.

what was I afraid of?

hearing!

I didn't want to hear from God, I was happy just sitting and talking to him, rather than it be the other way round. Surely that's what prayer is for...

how wrong was I!

I always thought I was a good listener until now. Listening is not about talking. Now I know that sounds obvious, but it really isn't. Listen for me was waiting until there was a gap in the conversation, then saying what I had to say. That I now realise, is not what its all about.

God speaks loudest when we are silent, and sometimes he speaks so silently that we almost miss it.

When God spoke to Elijah in the desert, he whispered. In the Hebrew translation there is no word for silence. Its not like wind, or the stillness that we know it, its speaking as silence. When he speaks it IS silence.

so, how do we hear God in the noise around us? Is there a connection with the amount of noise in our lives and our inability to hear God?

one for you to ponder!