Relinquish the False Self - Silence

     This is probably one of the simplest, but most overlooked spiritual disciplines I have read about in this book.  Silence is so counter-cultural for America.  We live in a world where silence is constantly broken for various reasons, or, no reason at all.  Every day I'm woken up from the silence of my sleep by my alarm clock, and I know many times I use my laptop or my iPod to break the "boring silence" of a car ride.  Is there really anything wrong with waking up to an alarm clock?  No, I really don't think so.

     The point of silence isn't too get rid of everything in your life so that you can sit in a dark room by yourself and just meditate all day.  It's about just taking time to listen.  Silence isn't beneficial if you don't listen to God's voice...ok, so probably not an audible voice, but you know what I mean.  The real point of silence is to use this time as a time of reflection on what God is doing in your life: what he is teaching and showing you.

     "But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed." (Luke 5:16)

     "After the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire.  And after the fire came a gentle whisper." (1 Kings 19:12)

     God moves through the sounds and the silences of our life.  The problem is we only tend to focus on the sounds.  Silence helps us focus in on the gentler, deeper revelations that God "whispers" to us in the silence.  Or rather, he has been "whispering" all along and you were just making too much noise yourself to listen.  I know I'm guilty of not hearing the whisper until much later than God planned for me too.