Sanctified Silence Series

You can learn in silence what sound can never teach you. Howard Thurman tells of one of his

University students who was a deep sea diver. He wrote of his experience of being on the bottom of

the ocean. The water was clear and he was in the midst of a coral rock garden. He sat down to look

around. Occasionally a fish would swim up to take a look at him, and then pass the word to his

friends, for soon there were many curious fish about him.

As he sat there, the beauty of the garden became more intense. Plants had opened up revealing

what looked like blossoms. He felt like he was in a beautiful flower garden. It was wonderful. He

enjoyed it for a long while, but then he realized he could not stay there forever, and he started to go

about his business. As soon as he moved all the flowers disappeared. They were living things, and

they emerged only when there was silence and stillness. The activist sea diver who comes splashing

through such a garden would never see its full beauty. He learned that there are marvelous things

you will never see unless you sit in silence.

Professor Johnson from Bethel taught us this is true on land as well. Tens of thousands of people

visit Como Park, but only a few ever see the Ruby Crown Kinglet. The only way to see this tiny little

bird is to crawl into the hedges and sit in silence. Soon this pretty little creature will come flitting

right up to you, and give you a view that the noisy people passing by will never see.

The point of Psa. 46:10 is that there are things about the Creator, as well as His creation, that can

only be learned by those who have developed the discipline of silence. "Be still, and know that I am

God." An unknown poet wrote:

In every life

There's a pause that is better than onward rush,

Better than hewing or mightiest doing;

'Tis the standing still at sovereign will.

There's a hush that is better than ardent speech,

Better than sighing or wilderness crying;

'Tis the being still at sovereign will.

The pause and the hush sing a double song,

In unison low and for all time long,

Of human soul, God's working plan

Goes on, nor heeds the aid of man!

Be still, and see!

Be still, and know!

The Bible has a great deal to say about the value of quietness, but it is greatly neglected in our

culture because we are a sound oriented culture. We specialize in making everything that makes

sound portable so that we can have the sound even at the beach, or out on the lake, or camping in the

woods. We have made it possible to escape silence completely, even if we find ourselves in the most

remote area. We have made it possible to banish silence from our lives almost completely.

There was a tunnel down in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida where radio waves did not penetrate, and

there was a 20 to 30 second break as motorists went through. A man got permission to set up a

system inside the tunnel to give weather information so drivers would not have to endure the agony of

that few seconds of silence. We live in a culture which is anti-silence, and the result is, even

Christians have a very difficult time identifying with a Biblical values of quietness. Eccles. 9:17says,

"The quiet words of the wise are more to be heeded than the shouts of a ruler of fools." Because

of radio and TV we tend to hear the shouters and noisy voices rather than the quiet ones.

Psa. 131:2 says, "But I have stilled and quieted my soul; like a weaned child with its mother, like

a weaned child is my soul within me." The peace and contentment of a satisfied child is an ideal state

of mind. The crying aggravated child whose hunger pain makes it a noise box of perpetual

disturbance is not the ideal. Christians tend to fall into these two categories: The bawling baby

always discontent, and with spiritual colic, who disturbs the family of God continually, or the

contented child who feels loved and satisfied, and gives pleasure to the family by perpetual

pleasantness. It takes a lot of silent feeding on the milk of the word to be such a contented child.

Most Christians in our culture do not know how to enjoy the silence of being still and knowing God

in this way.

Paul wrote in I Thess. 4:11, "Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life." He wrote to Timothy

also, and urged him to pray for kings and all in authority. Why? Because he goes on to say in I Tim.