Today we are finishing up our series on the spiritual disciplines called “Sacred Rhythms.” We have looked at 5 different spiritual disciplines so far. We have looked at the spiritual discipline of mediation, prayer, celebration, service and then last week we look at the spiritual discipline of giving. Today we come to the discipline of silence.
I believe that best way to learn about the spiritual discipline of silence is by having an experience of silence. Today for about 15-16 minutes as part of this message we are going to have a guided experience in silence. This is going to be based on an incident in Scripture found in 1 King 19:10-18. The country of Israel was in a spiritual mess. Israel was under the leadership of King Ahab and Jezebal. So, Elijah the prophet was surrounded by people who were not listening to God, not paying attention to God and not following God.
Elijah challenges King Ahab and his prophets of Baal to a duel on Mount Carmel. Elijah experienced a great victory but Elijah gets a bounty put on his head by Jezebal and he runs for his life. And Elijah all of sudden finds angry, lonely, disillusioned, burned out and depressed. So he is remembering all his losses in his life, all the things that have gone wrong, how hard things had been and he had enemies out to get him. His perspective on his life and on God is distorted.
So God comes to Elijah and He sends him to the mountain. On the mountain God meets Elijah in a deep way that was deeper than words and in that same way I believe God wants to meet us in a way that is deeper than can come from a spoken sermon. My prayer is that as Elijah was deeply moved and transformed that we will be deeply moved and transformed as well.
As we enter into this experience together here are few instructions. I would like to ask you to keep your eyes open and follow the PowerPoint slides to guide you. At two points you will instructed to close your eyes. Just follow along and do what the slides ask. I would like to ask you to be very mindful of the people around you. I would like to ask you to keep movement to a minimum.
Now when this room falls silent, you are going to notice that you are hearing things more loudly than normal like coughs and the clearing of throats. Try to blank out everyone else out of this room. Imagine that you are alone with God.
- This is going to be an uncomfortable and new experience for most of us but hang in there. We are going to have an experience of a Scripture that we can have in no other way.
This silent sermon concept is not original to me. Lauren and I experienced this when we were in New York at the EHS Conference two years ago. I found it to be a very powerful experience and I hope that you do too. I was able to take the idea and adapt it and shorten it for our purposes. The silent sermon that Lauren and I experienced was 25 minutes long. They say that the average person can only handle about 15 minutes of silence so I wanted to get a little closer to that number for our first try at this. So relax and listen to God in the silence.
***** If you don’t have Microsoft Office you will have to download this program to watch the presentation.
God met Elijah in the sound of sheer silence. The spiritual discipline of silence is necessary in a world of noise. It has been said that monasteries but also churches are about the only places left in the world of noise that can still proclaim silence without apology and without explaining it. Intentional silence serves as a necessary and valuable counterweight to a society filled with thoughtless and excessive words.
I want to invite you to experiment with silence – to create space in your life for silence. I believe one of the best times to do this is during our daily structured time with God – our quiet time. Rather than just read the word and then pray, read the word and then stop and be silent and listen and then pray. Start with 1 minute and then try adding more.
Remember, the whole point of the spiritual discipline of silence is to help us tune into God, to make us attentive to His voice and to block out or remove distractions that keep us from listening to God.
