NormsMilfordBlog

From a recent Jack’s Winning Words blog comes this thought

“After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music.”  (Aldous Huxley)

I’ve written a few times here about the power of music in our lives – it’s ability to alter our mood by evoking memories (think of your favorite love song or song about a lost love) or conjuring up imagery in our minds eye (the song Eye of the Tiger comes to mind). Songs can have a powerful influence on our lives, but not nearly the power of silence.

It is in total silence that our mind is free to wander on its own and to focus upon hearing that small little voice that is always trying to get through to us – perhaps the voice of God; trying, as always, to call us back to Him.

There is a saying that we have on a little plaque on our kitchen wall that seems appropriate:

“Make time for the quiet moments, as God whispers and the world is loud.”  (Greg Olson)

We live in such a fast-paced and loud world that making time for silence is hard; yet it is essential to our well-being and to the practice of our faith. It is a well-known public speaker technique to begin to speak softly when you’re faced with a noisy audience. It causes everyone to stop speaking themselves and to lean in to try to hear what the speaker is so softly saying. Perhaps God uses that technique to get our attention by whispering to us. We really have to lean in in order to hear what He is saying.

There is a time before church every week; before the organist starts playing the prelude to the service and before the sanctuary fills with the buzz of people still talking about their secular lives, where I often see one or two people quietly sitting in the pews, taking advantage of the silence to pray or listen for the voice of God. Sometimes you will find people just sitting in church during the week doing the same thing. They are making quite moments and listening for the whispers of God.

One doesn’t have to be in church to listen for God, but it does help to be in quite surroundings, in silence, if possible. For many, those moments may come at night, while lying in bed; if they are able to shut out the thoughts of the rest of the day and focus upon the silence. Even then, God waits for you to initiate the conversation; but, once you call on Him, listen intently to the whispers that you will hear in reply. It is the Shepard calling and as is written – “My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me.” – John 10:27

So, listen up people…God has something to say to you.

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 25th, 2016 at 2:07 pm and is filed under faith, Inspiration. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.