I love good small talk and banter, it is a legitimate language of love as far as I’m concerned, and deep conversation enriches our lives. But the pinnacle— after we’ve retold stories, exchanged inside jokes, caught up and shared our hearts— is when we take a deep sigh and sit in a full, knowing silence. A peaceful place of contented quietness, knowing we don’t need to fill space with sound just for the sake of it.
We are confident in our connection— confident enough to breathe, take in the moment, reflect and simply enjoy the other’s company. There, we know we don’t have to perform, strive or entertain the other person to keep them around. Sometimes the reward of friendship is resting and knowing you’re loved, in finding a silence that conveys more than affirming words can. We are meant to have that with the Lord. There’s a stillness where we are delighted in and where we delight in Him, a Spirit-to-spirit connection.
I wonder if that was part of what God was getting at when He told Elijah He would meet him on a mountain in 1 Kings 19. Elijah waited as a mighty wind billowed through, a rattling earthquake shook the ground, and a blazing fire rose, but God wasn’t in any of them.
Instead He was found in the whisper that came after all the noise.
How do you find His whisper in your fast-paced day? How do you quiet yourself to listen? How do you sit and soak in contented peace, in being known by God?
It’s as easy as carving out the time to wait and listen. God will always take the opportunity to speak to you. There’s a deeper relationship with Him that moves beyond just seeking Him for answers, religious duty or a divine checklist, but instead to know His voice, His presence, His face.
There’s something special about music that creates that space for encounter with God’s presence.
Music helps us wait; it tunes our senses, keeps us engaged, helps us wait on Him.
There His peace meets you, His joy runs through you, His love rests and calms all anxiety and busyness. There’s so much more to Him than what could be contained in mere words. He is beyond the culmination of our every attempt to describe, quantify, express or explain Him. Music has a way of conveying when words fall short.
We are certainly not the first ones to think this way. God created by the sound of His voice, the timbre and tone of His words spoken into the void. The resonance of His voice still creates new realities in us. David played his harp for Saul whose mind was sick and tormented by a spirit, and the resonance of the harp brought relief to an oppressed king. Instruments still prophesy, music still heals.
The Psalmists makes a profound statement and then calls for a “selah,” a moment of silence to let the truth sink deep. Some moments still call for selahs. God’s not limited by language. The spoken word is not His only native tongue.
His pedagogy transcends convention. He speaks— but the very Word that became flesh is not confined to pen and paper, black and white, print and re-print. He speaks inside and outside of convention and punctuation. What He shares is Himself. He may be known in word and speech— and rhythm, rhyme, shade, scale, song, crescendo, contrast and color. Spirit-to-spirit we enter in as deep cries to deep. Face-to-face we experience the contentment, peace, joy, truth and love found in His presence. We come to know Him in friendship, with words and without.
For further reflection: spend some time soaking in His presence with our instrumental worship album, “Without Words: Synesthesia.” Here’s the song, “Ever Be” by Kalley Heiligenthal.