5 Benefits of Silence, Faith, Communication with God, Hope, Tips, Walk

A Quiet Heart is a Heart under Command

To come to God with a quiet heart is not only acceptable but preferred. A quiet heart is a heart under command, a heart under government or rule. The unquiet heart is the heart that has become its own Judas, its own Absalom, an ungoverned heart, a renegade heart that has become its own master. For all his contradictions, all the tension between his greatness and his mistakes, between his passion and his devotion, King David was a surrendered man. He possessed a heart under command—not always quiet, but under government. He was easily broken before God. This should be comforting when you consider how outrageously human David was, how flawed, and yet how beloved of God.

Our Silence is a Living Thing

While it may be mute, our silence is anything but empty. It teems with life and substance. Our first example is Christ himself. “Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed” (Mark 1:35).

Necessity, even for the Son of God, drove him early in the morning to a quiet place. There he found his prayer, the one waiting within him, the one in bloom, that grew restless in him until morning was ripe for words. This is conjecture, certainly, but prayer and inwardness work just this way. It is a matter of appetite. And appetite is a gift. It’s not something we can give ourselves.

The Silence of God is Fertile

Scripture invites us to become intimate with silence, to befriend it, to allow it to be a friend to us, a generous friend at that, instructing, correcting, reassuring, one who serves us with great benefit. There are many instances in Scripture where Jesus calmed loud and boisterous things whether it was an unquiet sea or a man gone out of his senses. A word or two was all it took. “Peace, be still,” he said (Mark 4:39). The silence of God is fertile, revelatory, prolific, redemptive, filled utterly with Himself. The hush is profound, bottomless, like his love. “Be still, and know that I am God” (Psalm 46:10).” Silence and illumination are often found together in the economy of God.