Necessary Silence
Psalm 46:10a says, “Be still, and know that I am God!” According to Yahoo News (August 16, 2017), an unusual song emerged as one of the most popular tracks on the iTunes Top 50 charts. The title of the song is “A a a a a Very Good Song” and it is almost 10 minutes of complete silence. No music is played and there is no voice or sound heard at all.
So, if you own a recently-modeled car that automatically plays music from your Bluetooth connector, the auto-connect would play this song first and your first 10 minutes in the car would be complete silence. The reason why this was one of the most popular tracks is that silence is something we never realized we wanted so badly.
Let us remember, our normal daily activity is flooded with noise and commotion. Much of it is not evil but noise and activity direct our attention to everything else and tend to distract us from hearing from God.
Alarm clocks playing various noises; notifications whenever someone texts, emails, or tags us; the breaking news notifications on CNN or MSNBC; notifications to check Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Tik-tok exist from the time our eyes open until the time we close them at night. We are assaulted and caught up in noise and distractions! Whether intentional or unintentional, noise disturbs your focus.
Distractions and noise are camouflaged to pull our attention away from God and on to something else. Removing it completely is sometimes the only way we can truly listen to what God is trying to say to us. This is the reason we must be intentional in necessary silence.
Silence is necessary because our lives are full of trouble, chaos, disorder, and confusion. We all have or will face circumstances that we believe are more than we can handle and will understand the helpless feeling of not being able to change our situations in life. These are the times we need to be reminded of Psalm 46:10. We need not be in such a hurry. Be still.
When we are still, we can let God be God. Perhaps we should stop trying to fix everything. Maybe we should not be in such a hurry to get to the next place. Be still. Stop worrying about everyone and their lives all the time.
I have lived long enough to learn that there are some things in life I cannot fix. I should be still and allow God to work. This has taught me to completely surrender what power I thought I had to control everything and allow God to make all things right in God’s time.
Necessary silence is what we need. We must initiate it, however, because it is not just going to happen by itself. Let us try sitting still and being quiet. I am positive that God has something to tell us.
