“When a certain immoral woman from that city heard he [Jesus] was eating there, she brought a beautiful alabaster jar filled with expensive perfume. Then she knelt behind him at his feet, weeping. Her tears fell on his feet, and she wiped them off with her hair. Then she kept kissing his feet and putting perfume on them.”
— Luke 7:37-38 (NLT)
During this account in Luke of the woman anointing the feet of Jesus, the bible records no dialogue between Jesus and the woman at all. It appears as if this whole act was performed in silence.
10.
Silence is Golden
In a previous blog “When God is Silent”, I explored the idea that one result of those times in our lives when God seems to remain silent is a greater desire to hear from God. But looking at it from another perspective, if we never allow times of silence with God, then how will we be able to hear from him?
You may have heard it said before – God is a gentleman and he often waits for us to listen before he speaks. He knocks on the door and waits (Rev 3:20). So if we’re always the ones chatting away then how can we expect to hear him over the noise? Or if we never spend time with him in the first place, how can we expect him to direct our steps?
God is always wanting to spend time with us, desperate for our attention. The bible says he sings songs of deliverance around us (Psalm 32:7), only we can’t always hear him when he does. These songs are powerful enough to break any stronghold and have victory over any difficulty we face, but if we don’t learn to listen, we will never experience the strength that is to be found in those songs!
I find it easiest to think of listening for God’s voice as if trying to listen to a radio – you know one of those ones with the dial for tuning? The channel we want to listen to is on a radio frequency that we aren’t quite sure of yet and we have to listen very carefully as we search for it through all the countless possibilities, carefully turning the dial a little more, a little less. In the mean time all we are hearing is static as we search. As we get closer to the right frequency, we will hear the voices quietly at first, still with a little distortion from the static, not always able to make out the exact words. But as we get better at tuning in, when we finally hit the perfect frequency, we hear what is being said with perfect clarity.
It’s similar when we are learning to listen for God’s voice. When we first start, it can be hard to tune in to God’s ‘frequency’. But as we practice, we get better and better at hearing his voice and what he is trying to teach us. The problems that a lot of us face when trying to discern God’s plan for our lives is that we struggle to figure out what he is saying. But the truth is that if we never practice silence, if we never take the time to listen or learn to recognise his voice, then we will always struggle. And that’s a massive shame because we will miss out on all that he has to say.
Add to that the fact that, unlike a radio station, the methods that God uses to speak to us and the voices he uses, as well as the people he speaks through, can change, and it starts to get complicated. He sometimes uses his ‘still small voice’. He sometimes ‘roars’ like a lion. He sometimes speaks to us using our own voice. He sometimes… actually often, speaks through the least likely people. He sometimes speaks to us through images, impressions and visions. His methods are vast! But the person of the Holy Spirit never changes. And it is in the silence that we begin to discern with his wisdom what is from God and what isn’t.
Our lives are too loud and our schedules are too crowded.
It is when this happens that we displace God as Lord of our lives and fill it instead with everything else that’s going on around us, listening to others’ opinions and making decisions based on popularity over God’s purpose for our lives (there’s a great podcast on this here.)
The solution? Silence.
Get alone with God. Shut out the distractions. Take some time with just him. Learn to hear His voice. Hide yourself in Him. And enjoy learning to know God more intimately.
11.
Worship isn’t about what you can get; It’s about what you can give
Looking back at the story in Luke 7, this woman didn’t come with an agenda. She didn’t have a list of requests. As far is it records she didn’t ask Jesus for anything throughout, but rather she came simply with love to bless him and be in his presence. Worship, including these times alone in prayer, isn’t about getting something from God. It isn’t about coming to him with a list of needs or coming because you want something from him. Worship is about coming to Jesus to give him what you already have.
God doesn’t need our worship. He knows he is good and he knows he is worthy of our praise. He has no insecurities whatsoever. Worship isn’t what God needs to boost his ego.
We worship because we need to worship. Because we were created to. We forget how good he is. We forget how worthy he is of our praise. Worship realigns our hearts to his. It is about us boldly entering his presence because we love him and want to spend time with him. It’s about giving him everything, including our time because he is worthy and because it’s what he asks us to do, not because we want or need something.
If he did nothing else for us for the rest of our lives, he has still done more than we could ever deserve.
Yet God can never be out-given. He can never be outdone in generosity. When we kneel at the feet of Jesus with the attitude of generosity, the reality is that we will always leave with more than we came.
Thank you God that you promise you will never leave us or forsake us.
Thank you that I don’t have to use fancy words or complicated sentences to talk to you.
Help me to remember the power there is in moments of silent reflection with you.
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