Credit: Trad Harter
This daily post is designed to help you live into our New Room Society covenant of practicing daily prayer together. Below is this week’s theme and daily practice.
Week 10: Silence
How comfortable are you with silence? Can a leader be effective if they don’t speak? Where does silence live, anyway?
“My soul, wait in silence for God alone,
because my hope comes from him.”
Psalm 62:4-6, Complete Jewish Bible (CJB)
We live in an increasingly loud world.
It’s rare to see someone sitting silently, doing nothing. Rather, everywhere you look people are wearing headphones and scrolling endlessly through any number of social feeds on their phones, tablets, or laptops.
Would it be too strong a statement to say we have an addiction to noise, or signal, or activity?
The Hebrew people were accustomed to noise as an accompaniment to God’s speaking at Sinai. Thunder and lightning and the sound of a trumpet preceded and accompanied the Word of God (Exodus 19). Centuries later, the prophet Elijah experienced storm and earthquake and fire on Sinai, and he was ready to listen to God speaking in the midst of the loud chaos. But God’s words were not in the noise, but in “a sound of sheer silence” (1 Kings 19).
Is it possible that in a culture of noise, Yaweh’s most profound and powerful message requires silence?
Are there even any places of silence left in our world? And if not, how can the leaders of Jesus’ people create those places?
Sunday: Lectio Divina
Allow this scripture to anchor your prayer time today.
“Set a guard, Adonai, over my mouth;
keep watch at the door of my lips.”
Psalm 141:3, Complete Jewish Bible (CJB)