Silence and Solitude
How comfortable are you with silence?
Verse of the Day
“For God alone, O my soul, wait in silence, for my hope is from him.”
Today’s Devotional
Richard Foster has some really beautiful teaching about the need for and the power of silence. In fact, he says that he wrestled over whether to title this discipline the discipline of solitude or silence. They are deeply intertwined. Today I will let Foster teach you. Tomorrow we will practice. Personally, this is very powerful because I am not always comfortable with silence. As I have been practicing, it does not always go well. My humanness gets in the way of my desire to sit silently before God. In order to remain teachable, we must be taught. Let’s look at what Foster has to teach us about silence:
- Without silence there is no solitude. Though silence sometimes involves the absence of speech, it always involves the act of listening. Simply to refrain from talking, without a heart listening to God, is not silence.
- We must understand the connection between inner solitude and inner silence; they are inseparable.
- We must come to understand and experience the transforming power of silence if we are to know solitude.
- The purpose of silence and solitude is to be able to see and hear. Control – rather than no noise – is the key to silence.
- Under the discipline of silence and solitude we learn when to speak and when to refrain from speaking.
- Thomas à Kempis writes, “It is easier to be silent altogether than to speak with moderation.”
- A person under the discipline of silence is a person who can say what needs to be said when it needs to be said. “A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in a setting of silver.” (Proverbs 25:11) If we are silent when we should speak, we are not living in the discipline of silence. If we speak when we should be silent, we again miss the mark.
- One reason we can hardly bear to remain silent is that it makes us feel so helpless. We are so accustomed to relying upon words to manage and control others. If we are silent, who will take control? God will take control, but we will never let him take control until we trust him. Silence is intimately related to trust.
- One of the fruits of silence is the freedom to let God be our justifier. We don’t need to straighten others out.
- The tongue is a thermometer; it gives us our spiritual temperature. It is also a thermostat; it regulates our spiritual temperature.
- Dietrich Bonhoeffer writes, “Real silence, real stillness, really holding one’s tongue comes only as the sober consequence of spiritual stillness.”
When we think of stewardship, we often think of money. But I believe we must be good stewards of our words. In learning to practice the discipline of silence and solitude, we will learn to steward our words in a way that honors God and points others to Him. We will learn to build others up, to encourage, to correct in love, to speak the truth about God. Are we willing to practice silence in order to better steward our words?
Journal Prompts
Answer only the questions that seem relevant to you today.
How comfortable are you with silence? Why or why not?
How do you currently listen to God? How do you listen for whatever God is trying to tell you?
How well do you see and hear spiritually?
What evidence do you see that your ability to be silent is related to your trust in God?
How comfortable are you with allowing God to be your justifier?
How would you describe or rate your spiritual temperature?
Are you a good steward with your words? How could you improve your stewardship of your words?