The Gift of Silence

Be still, and know that I am God. – Psalm 46:10

Mallards by the dozens were circling consistently overhead. I was standing belt-deep in Mississippi delta buck brush, finger positioned just about the safety. Bands of ducks looked like they wanted to land on top of us, but they’d never quite commit. My hard-core duck-stacking buddy said, “We’re talking too much. Let’s go silent and see what they do.”

Five minutes later the experiment was tested. A group of green heads locked down, then came down, and we sent feathers flying.

Now, some duck hunters would have said we were out of position, or not patient enough, or that’d we’d misjudged the savvy migrators. We knew we were in the perfect spot, yet even our gentle calling had become our enemy. We found out quickly that silence was our ally.

We often interpret God’s silence as a signal that something’s gone wrong. But God sometimes silences his voice to force us to deal with unrepentant sin or to learn a key life lesson from him. However, there are times when he is silent specifically to grab our attention. That’s how we know that we have allowed our lives to become filled with chatter that is drowning out what we need to hear from him.

If we could just learn to value the quiet, we’d see, and we’d hear, those things that cannot be discerned when we’re surrounded by noise. Silence can be God’s gift to us.

Think It Through

In this season of your life, what is your greatest enemy when it comes to spending time in relationship with God? Be specific.

Devotional by Jason Cruise from the NIV Outdoorsman Bible.