Experiencing God in Seasons of Silence
The desert is the best place around me to find solitude. Recently, my husband and I decided to take advantage of this. There’s a popular trail we’ve enjoyed with others that is both safe and secluded. Within minutes, the desert surroundings consume you, and it’s only the familiarity of the paved trail and frequent fellow travelers who offer the illusion that the dangers of the desert cannot disturb you here. However, this time, after a mile into the desert, it was clear that the passengers of the other cars in the parking lot were not on this trail. We were alone, in the dark, in the desert.
The illusion of safety dissipated as we realized we had no company. The serene, silent night turned into an unbearable space of worry. Out of fear, we flooded the silence with talk of helpless reassurances, which only got us half a mile further before we retreated. We thought the silence and solitude of the desert was comfortable until we learned that it was only the presence of others (even as we walked apart from them) that allowed us to trust the silence and solitude.
While it’s completely rational to be cautious when alone in the desert, I’ve found it most similar to the experience I have of being anxious in the silence of God. So often in conversations about spiritual growth, there is an emphasis on discerning the voice of God. Discovering how God wants to communicate uniquely with me was initially exciting, but as I waited for Him to speak, I became increasingly disillusioned by His silence. As someone in vocational ministry, I felt inferior to those who heard from God often. I feared the silence because I thought I wasn’t disciplined or important enough to hear Him. I started to primarily seek and trust hearing from God when in community because—at least in the presence of others—the silence felt less loud and lonely.
When it comes to spiritual formation, I believe many people struggle to know how to engage with the silence of God because we are taught that God is always speaking. Not only this, but our world has trained us to be far less resilient in silence, as even the lifeless forms in our pockets have the power to talk. While God does speak—and we should learn to discern His voice—God also chooses to be silent, and we must be ready to engage in that language, too.
A recent friend and mentor of mine was the first to encourage me to explore silence as a language of God. Seth Bouchelle, in his book Grieving God, offered me solace in my season of wrestling with silence, and he has helped me know how to understand God when He speaks and even when He doesn’t. Seth illustrates the reality that God’s first language is silence, and by contrast, an idol requires incessant noise and attention. In silence, we are reminded that God is always with us, as “silence always exists, abiding underneath any other voices I may be listening to.” In silence, God helps us sift through the noise of the world to discover what is good and true. In silence, we learn to trust God as the creator and protector of our own being and identity, and to expose when we do not (Bouchelle, 104-106).
Seth’s ideas made me reconsider the way I interpret and engage in God’s silence. Perhaps God’s presence in silence is my greatest place of strength as it is the place in which all things—worry, fear, joy, anxiety, grief—pass into the presence of God until the truths of God are unmistakable in silence. When God speaks in silence, we receive the invitation to rest in our reality as His people.
In his book, Celebration of Discipline, Richard J. Foster brings practical language to the discipline of silence and solitude for the sake of knowing God better in His silence. The goal of silence and solitude is experiencing God’s fulfilling presence. Silence with God allows us to remember that God loves us for who we are, not what we pray, and that we love Him for who He is, not for what we are waiting on Him to tell us. In silence, we accept the invitation to remember and rest in reality as it is—that God is here, and He is who He says He is. Foster shares a quote from Thomas Merton: “Solitude and silence teach me to love my brothers for what they are, not for what they say” (Foster, 108). When we emerge from God’s silence as a place of being and belonging, we become more inclined to develop what Merton is realizing: a deep sense of love for neighbor.
It’s tempting to experience silence as both lonely and helpless. Foster says, “If we are silent, who will take control? God will take control, but we will never let him take control until we trust him” (Foster, 101). This is the same idea that Seth expresses when he talks about the ability silence has to expose the idols we trust in desperation instead of God. The fruit that comes from silence grows in proportion to our trust that God reigns in the silence, too. Just as hearing a word from God brings confidence and hope, resting in the silence of God allows us to have confidence and hope that God is the same to us in silence as He is when He speaks.
While I’m still on my journey of learning God’s language in silence, I’m thankful that silence and solitude welcome me graciously into the presence of God without the expectation that either I or God will speak. I’ve come to appreciate the silence of God as it releases the pressure I feel to muster up words or petitions; instead, it invites me to just be in the majesty and mystery of the I Am. As I’ve learned to trust God, the silence becomes the place of refining reorientation and transformation of who I am in Christ.
“For God alone my soul waits in silence; from Him comes my salvation” (Psalm 62:1, ESV).
