“Lord, Lord, don’t You care that we’re perishing?” In my sense of helplessness, panicking at the
waves swamping my little boat, I barge into Grace’s throneroom, spewing forth
my fears like an incoherent child with a scraped knee. How thankful I am that the King of grace is
my loving Father, well-pleased to take me in His lap and whisper, “Peace, be still,”
as much to my anxious heart as to the waves about me.
There, in the
silence, He administers the balm of His Spirit of comfort to my aches and
pains. As a Father asks His child to
“show Daddy where it hurts,” as a Shepherd examines His sheep on their entrance
to the fold at night, so He gently responds to our, “Search me, O God, and know
my heart; Try me and know my anxious thoughts, And see if there be any hurtful
way in me, and lead me in the everlasting way” (Ps 139:23-24).
It is in the
silence after the tears that we relax into the knowledge that He is God, the
Mighty One, Ruler of the wind and the waves, and He never says, “Oops!” (Ps
46:10). The torrent of words slows to a
trickle, then ceases. “My soul waits in
silence for God only; From Him is my salvation” (Ps 62:1). Weary of striving, we can make Amy
Carmichael’s prayer our own:
O Lord, my heart is all a
prayer,
But it is silent unto Thee;
I am too tired to look for
words,
I rest upon Thy sympathy
To understand when I am dumb;
And well I know Thou hearest
me.
I know Thou hearest me because
A quiet peace comes down to me,
And fills the places where
before
Weak thoughts were wandering
wearily;
And deep within me it is calm,
Though waves are tossing
outwardly (Gold Cord, 54).
What a comfort it is at those
moments to know, in the deepest part of my soul, that “in the same way the
Spirit helps our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the
Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words; and He who
searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He intercedes
for all the saints according to the will of God” (Rom 8:26-7).
Sometimes,
though, the silence frightens me. I want
to hide from God’s searchlight, afraid of what He may show me, what He may
command me, how He may change me. Like a
child fleeing from the needle that removes the splinter or stitches up a wound,
fleeing from the hands which wish to set the broken bone, what if the cure
gives added pain? Like my dog fleeing
his bath, it’s not that I like being dirty, but that I dislike the
cleansing process.
And so the torrent of words
resumes. Or I seek to quench the silence
with noise, or busy myself as a distraction.
Even the prayer of words can be an attempt to distract myself when God
seeks to deal with me in silence. “After
all,” I think, “if I am still, who will bail all this water out of the
boat?” Then, when silence seems least
affordable or desirable, I need it most.
Turning off the radio, the TV, the computer monitor, even physically
leaving all the things crying to be done and getting away for as little as
fifteen minutes, I face God in the silence and receive His peace.
“My soul, wait in silence for
God only, For my hope is from Him. He
only is my rock and my salvation, My stronghold, I shall not be shaken” (Ps
62:5-6).
