Friday, March 6, 2009

The God of Silence

So here is how my day began last Wednesday: I woke up at 7:45 and immediately go take a shower. I get dressed and go to the Student Union at eight. I get a cup of coffee then go sit on one of the chairs in the lobby and read a little bit from the Green Eggs and Hamlet books that are sitting on the tables. Tiffany shows up at about 8:10, and we sit and talk while she is eating her breakfast. She then goes to her class at 8:30, and I go to my dorm to grab my notebook. I went back the Student Union, went up on the second floor, sat down, and told my self that I was going to study for the test that I had at ten.

But guess what.

I didn’t study.

Nope.

I just sat there.

I sat there until 9:45.

That’s it.

I know that it sounds incredibly boring, but please let me explain myself before you call me a freak and go on with your life.

I have gotten in the habit recently of just being quiet. It may be in the Student Union or on a bench outside of Morrison Hall or in the amphitheater; it doesn’t matter where. But what happens is that I will go wherever and become overwhelmed with the solitude, with the stillness. I guess that a good word for it is meditation. Yeah, let’s call it meditation because that sounds deep.

But that day in particular, I just sat there and thought about God. Slowly these wonderful realizations began to wash over me. I had a particularly interesting thought that I just couldn’t seem to hold in, so I grabbed my notebook and began writing.

So I started to write and these others thoughts just began to flow out along with the first one. Before long I had wrote a "poem".

Finally I set my pencil down and read what was sitting in front of me. I simply felt completely overwhelmed by what God was showing me.

But it all started with one simple thought: Psalms 46:10 “Be still, and know that I am God.”

But what hit me so hard about this verse is that God said to be still and know that He is God. But before I tell you why, I need to tell you this:

I like astronomy. It endlessly fascinates me.

Why?

Go watch Louie Giglio. He is a pastor that travels a lot with Chris Tomlin. One video, in particular, is from Tomlin’s Indescribable Tour. In this video Giglio, talks about astronomy to show just how big God is, and it is astounding. It is absolutely awesome to think that the heavens are, quite literally, showing God’s glory 24-7.

It is the paradox that results from the collision of the verse in Psalms with this realization of God’s power. Or perhaps to word it better: if God made all of these wonderful and glorious things that are so amazing, how are we supposed to be still before Him? I mean some of the things that God has created, both here and out in space, almost force you to say, “Wow!” If we are looking at things this amazing and thinking about how big God would have to be in order for Him to effortlessly create something that we haven’t even begun to understand, how can we be quiet before God!

I think that the answer is that God wants us to be completely blown away by His glory and His creations (after all they reflect His glory), but He wants to reveal something else to us in the still silence: His Love.

I recall the story in 1 Kings 19, when the Lord appears to Elijah, not through an earthquake or a mighty wind or a great fire but through a still small voice. God has given us all of these wonderful things that hint at just how great our God really is, but when all of the noise fades and we find ourselves a quiet spot, He wants to show each of us His Love.

But what kind of a God could love something as insignificant as we are?

The God that opened His mouth and trillions of stars, each caught in a perfect balance of controlled chaos (a sermon possibility… hmmm?).

The God that opened His mouth and the whole universe spewed out.

The God that opened His mouth and light burst forth at 186,000 miles per second to drive away the darkness.

This is the same God that desperately wants to be with you.

I think it’s funny because it is almost like God is saying, “Yeah. I created that, but it’s not about how cool that is. It’s all about how much I love you.”

I find it so amazing that our God is so big and so awesome that He could appear to us in any form that would simply blow our minds, but instead He wants us to find Him in the silence. He could scream His Love for us in an infinite number of ways that would leave us breathless, but instead He chooses to whispers in our ears.

Our God is great!

Our God loves us!

Find Him in the silence.


Love,

Cole


Be still, and know that I am God. Psalms 46:10

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