God desires to speak to us, to meet with us at all times, in all activities. He wants us to experience His presence in every little thing we do, to be led by His voice. but so often we have trouble hearing amidst the racket of a noisy world. it is not that we don't want to hear Him, but that we cannot pick out His voice amongst the myriad of other, lying voices we are bombarded with. how can we escape this cacophony to find the One Voice which we truly thirst to hear?
God speaks to us at all times, but i believe it is in the quiet place of prayer that God tunes our ears to the sound of His voice, so that when we are amidst the noise of the world, we will be able to pick His out of the crowd. Jesus did promise that His sheep know His voice. a flock of sheep recognize the voice of their shepherd even amidst a crowd of other shepherds because they have come to know His voice as they roam the pastures with him, listen to him talk with them and call them in the still grasslands when there is no one else around. then when they are brought into the city, even among all the noise, they can still recognize him.
so often the Bible exhorts us "keep silence before the Lord", "be still". yet how often do we pass by this frequently repeated command? as if because it is a command to cease doing, it is any less worthy of our obedience? and when we do come to the place of prayer, is it often with so much noise of our own. somehow we've been led to believe that unless we are saying something during our time of prayer, rattling off some need or request, then we are largely wasting time. i would challenge you that the truth is actually the opposite: unless we are keeping silence before the Lord in prayer, listening to His voice, we are largely wasting time.
sometimes i think we are just afraid of what He might say if we gave Him the opportunity. perhaps our machine-gun prayers are more evidence that we do not trust the goodness of our God, or what He might say (or not say) given the chance. i think we've all been in a situation where we are with someone we are not entirely sure if we can trust and the conversation suddenly hits a lull. usually we start to frantically search for some topic, ANY topic to alleviate the awkward silence. however, contrast that with a true friend - you are totally comfortable, even happy just to sit in that person's presence without trying to force any conversation. you could sit for minutes or even hours without a word and feel no hint of awkwardness because you are convinced of that person's love for you. are we convinced of the Lord's love for us? and if so, why do we deal with Him as with someone whom we are not sure about?
we need to learn to keep silence and listen to the Voice of Love which desires to speak words of life into our hearts, to refresh, encourage, strengthen and bless us. that Voice is speaking constantly if only we would listen, but before we can listen in the crowd, we must come to the silent grasslands and learn its sound. anyway, just some random thoughts on prayer on Rosh Hashanah.
