Unusual Silence.

I live about 2-3 Kilometers from a pretty busy airport runway. Come to think about it, I have lived close to airports for the past 26 years of my life.

I am really used to the sound of engines of all sizes on all sorts of planes, from fighter jets to cargo planes.  After a while you really don’t notice them unless something changes. A new type of airplane flies in or they switch the direction of take offs etc.

This weekend something has been different. Noticeably different. And to be honest I didn’t even notice it at first, if that makes any sense. I just stopped and stood there and realized something was different. And it took me awhile to really notice. Something was missing. The noise, it was gone.

For 26 years I have always heard planes. Day and night. And now that was gone … and still is gone. And this silence is  … well … unusual and because it is unusual it is almost uncomfortable.

I always thought I lived in a quiet neighborhood … and now it is confirmed. I do.

This has got me thinking. I had grown so used to the noise that what I would normally refer to as silence, now doesn’t seem all that silent. Real silence is … well … A LOT quieter.

Many of us have probably heard the verses of Psalm 46 quoted before: Be still and know I am God.

Some of us may have tried to find a quiet place in our lives; we may have even found what to us seemed to be a quiet time and a quiet place. We may have been able to ‘hear God’ better. Could it be though, that more often than not, we just turned the volume level down, yet never really turned the noise off? Aren’t we really honestly uncomfortable with just silence and not being on the go?

Now here we are all over Europe sitting still because, frankly we can’t go anywhere. No planes are flying, trains, busses and ferries are all booked. We have no other option other than to just stop and wait. By the tone of things on the news, Facebook and twitter, it seems to be a really hard thing to accept. No one wants to just sit, be still and wait.

For those of us who have faith it even tests us. We need to put just that very faith into practice and rely on God and know that he is in control.  Obviously all of this is not in our control.

It is sort of funny that it takes something as prehistoric sounding as a volcano erupting in Iceland to teach us this: We are not in control.

Our technology is not all powerful. Our agendas for our lives, our coming and going, are not in our hands. We are simply overcome by something as basic as ashes.

What kind of noise have you become too accustomed to in your life? What distracts you from just sitting, being still, listening and waiting on the Lord? Have you ever completely unplugged? Everything? Have you made your life really, really quiet and just sat there, listening and waiting on God?   My guess is that when your life is quiet, really quiet, the still small whisper isn’t that quiet at all.

That has been my experience with God. My life really had to be quiet first. It wasn’t quiet on my terms, but in His terms. And I wasn’t comfortable with that, yet it was then that I heard him the loudest and clearest. So try to be still and listen, who knows what kind of things God has up his sleeves to get out attention … honestly, I really don’t want to find out.

Read 1 Kings 19:9-13 for a story of hearing God and consider where you may be listening for God.