When was the last time you sat in total silence?
The greatest struggle in my life is finding a quiet place to sit in total silence waiting for the still small voice of my Father.
I love our house the back of it faces the front range of the Rocky Mountains and often in the morning I will sit at my kitchen table gazing at the beauty of God’s creation. Katharine Lee Bates was on Pikes Peak when she wrote the lyrics to “America the Beautiful” and I am blessed to have Pikes Peak framed in my sliding glass doors . But we are also only 200 yards from I-25 and the noise that comes with it. I have learned to ignore it somewhat but it is a significant enemy to silence.
When Kim and I were first married we talked about having a house full of activity. A place where people would find refuge. A place where all our childrens friends would want to come. God has answered that prayer. Our home is full of activity with people coming and going. We love it but it presents a unique challenge when searching for a quiet place.
In Chuck Swindols book “Intimacy with the Almighty” he lists four disciplines essential for intimacy two of them are silence and solitude. Which to me are almost the same thing. In A.W. Tozer’s “The Purpose of Man” he lists seven keys to intimacy and the very first is quiet. Tozer says “I put quietness first bcause unless we can find a place without distraction, the rest is undermined.
Once we have made a practice of dwelling in a quiet place we are more easily able to dwell in the secret place. Brother Lawrence in “The Practice of the Presence of God” says “what offering is more acceptable to God than thus throughout the day to quit the things of outward sense, and to withdraw to worshp Him within the secret places of the soul?”. Unless we have practiced being in a quiet place it is very difficult to dwell in the secret places of the soul throughout the day. Cultivating intimacy and recognizing the voice of God only comes through time and proximity.
I know I’m not alone in my struggle to find a quiet place. We must fight for it, make it a high priority, or we will slowly drift away from that most precious dwelling place where we are changed from Glory to Glory, where we become “like Him”, where we find rest, where He is my strong tower.
David understood the importance of dwelling in the secret place. I believe it was this practice that made him a man after God’s own heart. It was a recurring theme throughout his life and his writing. Among others he wrote:
He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High, shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty (Psalm 91:1), One thing I have desired of the Lord, That will I seek: That I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in His temple (Psalm 27:4).
My prayer for you, and for me, today is that we would get a fresh revelation of His love and passion for close intimate fellowship with us. Make it a priority to find a quiet place this weekend and then go there often.
Blessings as you walk in Him.
