The Power Of Silence- Streams In The Desert, July 5th

"Be still, and know that I am God" (Psalm 46:10).
Is there any note of music in all the chorus as
mighty as the emphatic pause? Is there any word
in all the Psalter more eloquent than that one
word, Selah (Pause)? Is there anything more
thrilling and awful than the hush that comes
before the bursting of the tempest and the
strange quiet that seems to fall upon all nature
before some preternatural phenomenon or
convulsion? Is there anything that can touch our
hearts as the power of stillness?
 
There is for the heart that will cease from
itself, "the peace of God that passeth all
understanding," a "quietness and confidence"
which is the source of all strength, a sweet
peace "which nothing can offend," a deep rest
which the world can neither give nor take away.
There is in the deepest center of the soul a
chamber of peace where God dwells, and where, if
we will only enter in and hush every other sound,
we can hear His still, small voice.
 
There is in the swiftest wheel that revolves upon
its axis a place in the very center, where there
is no movement at all; and so in the busiest life
there may be a place where we dwell alone with
God, in eternal stillness, There is only one way
to know God. "Be still, and know." "God is in his
holy temple; let all the earth keep silence
before him."  --Selected
 
"All-loving Father, sometimes we have walked
under starless skies that dripped darkness like
drenching rain. We despaired of starshine or
moonlight or sunrise. The sullen blackness
gloomed above us as if it would last forever. And
out of the dark there spoke no soothing voice to
mend our broken hearts. We would gladly have
welcomed some wild thunder peal to break the
torturing stillness of that over-brooding night.
 
"But Thy winsome whisper of eternal love spoke
more sweetly to our bruised and bleeding souls
than any winds that breathe across Aeolian harps.
It was Thy 'still small voice' that spoke to us.
We were listening and we heard. We looked and saw
Thy face radiant with the light of love. And when
we heard Thy voice and saw Thy face, new life
came back to us as life comes back to withered
blooms that drink the summer rain."