"The facts are that God is not silent, has never been silent. It is the nature of God to speak. The second Person of the Holy Trinity is called the Word." (The Best of AW Tozer)
Do you believe that? I do. Do I always live out that belief? No... do you?
So, if God is speaking to us - if it is His nature to communicate - why do you say things like, "I wish God would tell me..." or, "Why is God so quiet?", or "What does God want from me?"
Maybe its just us. Perhaps the problem isn't with God's communication... perhaps it is with our listening.
I remember a documentary I watched when I was in college. They interviewed a Rabbi in Jerusalem and asked about the Wailing Wall and the Jewish practice of prayer. The Rabbi said, "Prayer is not about making yourself audible to God... but attentive to Him."
Perhaps that is the key to living out the Apostle's sometimes frustrating admonition to "pray without ceasing". We hear Paul's words and question - "How can I pray all the time? I can't just put everything aside, fold my hands, close my eyes and talk to God. Besides... I'd run out of things to say."
That's prayer focused on us, on our side of the conversation. Oh, yeah... prayer is a conversation. A dialogue, not a monologue. If our "prayer time" is consumed with, dominated by our speaking - telling God what's on our hearts and minds - with little or no time invested in our listening to Him, we are missing half of prayer. Actually, we are missing the biggest, most important part of prayer.
Think about it. What is more vital in prayer - that we tell God what we think and what we want from Him, or that we hear from Him about what He thinks and wants from and for us?
Psalm 46:10 contains those great words - "Be still and know that I am God." - that are often turned into a message on the inside of some greeting card meant to comfort another person. That's nice and all, but it misses the meaning and impact of what the verse is saying.
It's not just "be still" as in "be at peace" but a more forceful "be still" as in "be quiet" or - if you'll excuse the bluntness of the Old Testament language - "Shut up! Quit talking!"
Have you ever had the experience of being with someone who just wouldn't quit talking? I mean, you couldn't get a word in no matter what you did? How did you enjoy that conversation? Not so much? A bit frustrating? Did you ever want to just cry out "Be quiet!"?
Think how God might feel when we make our prayer time into a one-sided event without giving Him the chance to speak with us - either through His Word or by the Holy Spirit.
God has something to say to you. He is not silent.
Are you willing to listen?
Is your spirit still enough that you don't have to do all the talking in your prayer time?
Can you hear what God has to say to you?
Can you listen?
It is a powerful way to connect with the Lover of your soul...
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