The Sound of Silence

Listening Prayer — that difficult, wonderful practice of sitting silent before the Lord and waiting for Him to speak, to say something!

What is in the sound of the silence?  What happens in the silence?

The silence quiets our hearts.  We sit quietly with the Lord, and He stills our hearts.  His peace washes over us, like breakers on the sand.

The silence creates humility within us.  As we sit silently with the Lord, He humbles our hearts.  God resists the proud, but He gives grace to the humble.  His grace pours over us, like showers of rain.

The silence opens our minds to understanding.  When we sit quietly with the Lord, we stop talking about our knowledge, and He gives us His understanding.  His revelation unlocks mysteries, like a key unlocks a forgotten gate.

The silence calls us to repentance.  As we sit silently with the Lord, He gently convicts us of those areas in which we fall short.  He offers forgiveness,  His blood washes away all of our sins.  He makes us new, pure, clean. His mercy clothes us in Christ, with white robes of righteousness.

The silence challenges our flesh.  As we sit silently with the Lord, we realize our weakness and His strength.  In the silence, His Spirit conquers the desires of our flesh.  He gives us the power to resist temptation.  He shows us the way out, the way of escape.

The silence causes us to bear fruit.  When we sit quietly with the Lord, we are transformed from hearers of the Word into doers of the Word.  The Spirit gives us a new boldness to do the good works that God has prepared beforehand for us to do.

The silence sharpens our hearing.  We sit silently before the Lord.  We wait patiently before the Lord.  We anticipate His very words.  We become sensitive to His Voice, to the promptings of His Spirit.  We learn to recognize Him when He speaks to us.

The sound of silence is the heartbeat of God whispering His Love into our hearts.

The sound of silence is a life forever changed.