God Waits with a Whisper
LETTER BY BRIAN MORYKON
God has no interest in joining the world’s shouting contest to get our attention. God waits with a whisper.
A whisper is intimate, a cupped hand against a trusted ear. It only works when the distance between speaker and listener collapses into contact. Maybe that’s why a whisper is God’s preferred tone of voice: because God wants us close.
Perhaps “hearing the whisper of God” sounds abstract, vaporous, mystical. I suppose in some way it is. But I bet you’ve experienced it, some moment where you’ve sat in quiet and nothing has happened but something has shifted. Maybe you don’t even notice the shift until later, when your soul feels sturdier than usual under similar circumstances.
Or perhaps you’ve sensed in silence a thought that rings with the authority of truth — weighty and light and clear: the whisper of God.
Hearing the Quiet Voice requires a time of quiet to hear it. The ability for silence and solitude depends largely on the season of life. Parents of young kids might have five minutes. Retirees might have five days. I trust that if you make the time appropriate to your season to sit with God in silence, to lean the ear of your heart close to God’s lips, that amidst all the noise of competing thoughts, whether you realize it in the moment or not, God’s whisper will restore your soul.
Brian Morykon
Director of Communications
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LET’S DIVE IN...
CURATED BY GRACE POUCH
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1.
Is silence useful? Michael Stewart Robb (author of The Kingdom Among Us and director of the Sanctus Institute in Spain) created a documentary, Alone Together, about a small group of pastors experimenting with the quiet of ancient monastic rhythms.
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2.
Ken Chitwood writes about the swell of European Christians who are “looking for ways to not only pursue converts but also help people conform to the image of Christ.”
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Henri Nouwen explains our critical need for solitude—that “strange period of uselessness” — to bring us in touch with the healing, hopeful presence of God in our lives.
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It is important to always remind ourselves that disciplines like silence and solitude are means. “Their purpose — their only purpose — is to place us before God.” Read an excerpt from Renovaré’s The Life With God Bible.*
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5.
The fruit of any true encounter with God in silence is strength to love others with the radical, self-giving love of Jesus. I wanted to share an excerpt with you from Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Strength to Love, but the link I had planned to share has been removed from the public university’s web page, and now there is this message: “Following the issuance of several recent federal executive orders as well as guidance issued by the U.S. Department of Education…[our] legal counsel is conducting an audit and review of university materials, including our website, to ensure compliance with all applicable regulations.” I invite you to pray about that.
You can order Strength to Love here.
*A second edition of The Life With God Bible is in the works! Would you pray for our team as we work with Zondervan to steward this wonderful resource forward?
Grace Pouch
Content Manager
WORTH QUOTING
“Jesus was ‘all ear.’ That is true prayer: being all ear for God.”
– Henri Nouwen (source)
TO CONTEMPLATE
Jonah in the Belly of the Fish
Lyuba Yatskiv
(source)
We might think of the fish incident as a punishment — and maybe it was a bit of a “time out” — but the utter silence, the complete solitude, and the close brush with death became a fertile space that changed Jonah’s mind (at least for a while!). When we descend into a tomb-like solitude, it is a grace to escape from the noise and impulsivity that drive our actions and to enter that stillness where we can pay attention to the Spirit — whom Jesus said “will teach you everything and remind you of all that I have said to you.” Discernment grows in silence. It is where we encounter the One who points us in the right direction.
TO PONDER
Recognizing your current season of life, mark a time on your calendar in the next six weeks — a morning, a weekend — for time alone with God. Be specific. Pick a time. Choose a place.