Cultivating Spiritual Silence

Spiritual silence is the capacity to quiet both inner and outer noise in order to open oneself to God. The modern world flees from silence, because in it is revealed what we prefer to ignore: our need, our loneliness, our Creator. Yet the Bible grants silence a precious place in the life of the soul. To learn to be still before God is to clear the heart so as to make room for His presence. Scripture presents silence under several faces. First there is the silence of worship: "But the LORD is in his holy temple: let all the earth keep silence before him" (Habakkuk 2:20). Then there is the silence of waiting, expressed in Psalm 62:1-2: "Truly my soul waiteth upon God: from him cometh my salvation." And finally there is the silence of grief, like that of Job's friends who sat with him seven days and seven nights without speaking a word, seeing how great his suffering was (Job 2:13). Each of these forms is a legitimate way of meeting God. Spiritual silence is also an act of humility: to acknowledge that we do not always have the words and that God has no need of our eloquence. Romans 8:26 teaches that "the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered." When words fail, the Spirit prays for us. Thus silence can become the most honest prayer, the purest expression of our dependence upon God. Far from being an absence, it is a shared presence, a confident rest in the One who knows the heart before it ever speaks.