I have been an intentional follower of Jesus for forty-five years. I was baptized when I was six years old. While theologically I believe that my soul’s salvation was secured “before the very foundations of the earth were laid,” the life of faith for me came together, consciously and intentionally, when I was a student in college.
Forty-five years. That’s a long time. (It also makes me an old man!) In forty-five years, I have read through the Bible multiple times, spent uncountable hours in prayer, read enough Christian books to fill a library, and been involved in thousands—THOUSANDS—of worship services.
And I have never audibly heard the voice God. There have been a few times—maybe three?—when there was a Presence so close to me that I could feel the Lord with me and almost hear a Voice. One of those times was a clear moment of guidance, the second was a call of clarity, and the third was an unmistakable word of comfort.
I think we all wish we could wake in the night and see words glowing on the ceiling or hear a voice speaking out of nothingness giving us clear instructions. But more often than not, I have been guided in my relationship with the Lord by the kind of silence that Elijah experienced in this passage.
It is so easy to crowd our lives—even our souls—with sound, with noise. As one who suffers from tinnitus, I play music a lot to mask the ringing. And my cell phone creates that silent clutter of invitation to surrender to thousands of distractions so much that I have chosen to banish it from the room when I have my daily devotions.
It is in the silence that I hear God, in the silence of sitting still, having read the Bible and listening, even when I hear—or even sense—nothing. In the silence of forty-five years of listening, I have heard so much, so very much. Most of all, I have heard that God loves me. And you know what? I heard Him say that He loves you, too.