I had an interesting experience tonight. It wasn’t anything outrageous or unbelievable… just interesting. As I pulled in to my parking spot after seeing a movie with a friend, I just let the song I was listening to play out before I turned the car off. The song has really nothing to do with what I’m talking about but I guess it just quieted me down a little bit. After it was over I turned off my car and just sank back in my seat, not really feeling like going outside. I wouldn’t normally think that my car doors and windows do a good job of blocking sound but I guess they’re just good enough to silence the army of crickets waiting for me outside because it was perfectly quiet inside. When I say perfectly quiet, I mean ridiculously, obnoxiously quiet. Have you ever tried to relax all of the muscles in your arm or leg just to see what it feels like to not move it at all and then all of the sudden get nervous that you really can’t move it so you stand up really quick or flex you arm just to make sure it still works (Don’t lie you know you’ve done it too)? It was something like that. I sat so still and so quiet that I felt like I could literally hear the silence. It was creepy, actually. So I jingled my keys a little but and pushed some change around in the ash tray just to make sure my ears were functioning properly. For those concerned, they work just fine, thanks for asking. But there was something about that silence that was just eerie. And for some weird, probably unrelated reason it put me in the mood to write. But I have no idea what to write about. I could try to write something funny but I really don’t have any funny stories or jokes at the moment. I could try to write something deep and profound that will make you scratch your head and want to comment on it. That’d make me feel really good about myself and maybe give me a little confidence boost or something. But who cares? Will I really write something that someone else hasn’t?
Many times we feel the need to say something… anything, for fear of silence. I notice it a lot when I’m working with other people. If there is a 5 or 10 minute pause without any talking or noise somebody will inevitably clear their throat or make some inane comment about they wish it was the weekend already. Silence is not an option for us. We try to avoid it as much as possible. It is simply too uncomfortable.
As a worship leader, I hate silence. I do my best to organize a worship service where there is absolutely no dead air. “We have to keep people occupied, or they’ll get uncomfortable and won’t come back,” I tell myself. I’m still not sure why though. This past Sunday the background music accidentally cut out with a minute still left on our pre-service countdown. Our band was already in place, and one of the guys asked if we were going to start now. I shrugged and said that the music would come back on in a second. I mean, Heaven forbid we start the service a minute early! But the music didn’t come back on. As I watched the second countdown from 50 to 49, 49 to 48, 48 to 47, each second seemed at least a minute long by itself. It became unbearably awkward as I could feel people staring at us, wondering when we would break the silence. I thought we could stick it out. I was wrong. With 30 seconds to go I couldn’t stand it any longer. I gave the signal, our drummer counted us in, and everyone became comfortable once again.
Thirty seconds?! I couldn’t stand 30 seconds of silence? How pathetic. But such is life; we can’t stop, we can’t stand still, and we wonder why we’re so tired at the end of the week. We are constantly moving, constantly listening to something, watching something, or doing something. Rarely do we stop or even slow down. Last week I only worked a half day at work so I could relax a little bit that night. But when I got home and sat down I realized that I had nothing to do, and I spent the next 5 hour aimlessly looking around the house and then eventually around town for something to occupy my attention, even only for a moment. We live such busy lives it’s often hard for us to simply take a day off.
It’s not comfortable, and we’re not used to it.
But that it is exactly what God tells us that we must do. Psalm 46:10 reads, “Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.” This is an often quoted verse, but I think it has become so common that we fail to understand its meaning. God speaks to us through the psalmist saying in essence, “Stop and be amazed by me! I am awesome and all-powerful and the entire earth will worship me one day.” There are two different kinds of things that amaze people. The first of these we will call “firecracker amazement.” This kind of amazement is the immediate reaction to a spectacular and incredibly obvious, in-your-face, kind of event. The second type of amazement is called “delayed amazement” (sorry, I couldn’t think of any really clever names for this one). This amazement is the awe that we get from looking at God’s creation, watching the sunset, staring into the eyes of someone you love, or laying outside at night and trying to count the stars. It is often subtle and can be lost in an instant if we’re not careful. What do both of these kinds of amazement have in common? They both cause us to stop and just wonder. They take our breath away and bring our busy lives to a screeching halt. This is what God is talking about.
He is saying, “Stop. Take a breath. Think about me and let me blow your mind.”
We are too busy for God.
Our friends are too important, Facebook is too important, our job is too important, our church is too important.
“Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.”
Stop.
jeremy stone 