Silence is one of the greatest treasures and most necessary, and sought after commodities. Silence is so precious that one must pursue it actively as a hidden treasure.
Bombarded by the ever multiplying and volume of voices of our age, souls today more readily hear and accept the gospel of the world. They quickly follow worldly advise, conforming to opinion and caving to the bad news in the media. They rarely possess the time and space to hear God and the true Gospel – the Gospel of radical change, liberation and profound healing.
Silence opens a soul’s heart and mind to hearing the silent voice of God. “After the earthquake came a fire, but the L ORD was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper.” 1 Kings 19:12
To become like God, a soul must know God and to know God we must be able to communicate with Him. We must speak His language – that of silence.
Silently listening to God is a sacrifice of the heart, which is a sacrifice acceptable to God. By hearing the voice of God, the soul will learn God’s Divine Will, and will be more able to obey it.
When the noise of the world surrounds us and even the noise of our prayers fills our ears and heart, we so easily drown our God’s silent guidance toward His Divine Will. Never failing to guide our souls, God will sit for decades in silence, while we drone on about our worldly worries and fears and while we chase the dreams of life. We spend hours crying out to God to get Him to listen, never understanding that He has never stopped being attentive to our needs.
Today and going forward commit yourself to spending just ten (10) minutes in silent prayer. Sit and don’t speak, don’t voice concerns (God knows them already). Sit and listen to God and His silence. Don’t go into this time expecting or desiring to hear God speak. Just sit in silence of world, voice and spirit. Set time in your calendar to exclude interruptions. It may be difficult but do it every day and ten minutes sneaks into 15 and into 30 and beyond.
“[I]n order to hear the voice of God, one has to have silence in one’s soul and to keep silence; not a gloomy silence, but an interior silence; that is to say, recollection in God. … God does not give Himself to a chattering soul which, like a drone in a beehive, buzzes around but gathers no honey. A talkative soul is empty inside. It lacks both the essential virtues and intimacy with God. A deeper interior life, one of gentle peace and of that silence where the Lord dwells, is quite out of the question. A soul that has never tasted the sweetness of inner silence is a restless spirit which disturbs the silence of others.” Divine Mercy in My Soul # 118