The Skill of Silence
We don’t have to have all the answers.
Let’s say you want to make a name for yourself.
You want to be noticed by those who have the potential of advancing your career.
So you look at best selling authors and “life” coaches who could do for you what they have already shown you they can do for themselves. (After all, they got you to consider hiring them buying their book of “life hacks” that promise you to easily stand out and propel you to the top of import organizations).
Upon opening their books or watching their videos, what general universal recommendations are usually provided?
Speak up
be positive
be prepared
dress for success
work out
practice
do more
sleep less or at least more efficiently.
Permit me to gently push back.
When we are young, desperate, fearful, and needy, nothing is more frightening than silence, inactivity, and disconnection from potential prospects.
Our brains scream, “Don’t just sit there, do something!”
And then this post shows up to remind you that — at the still point of the revolving world there is a time for silence, a time not to do something, but sit there.
There is a time not to promote self, but to live out a faith that believes help will arrive as we remain faithful to what we have been called to do.
It is time not to give up.
It is time not to quit.
And it is a time not to self-promote.
It really boils down to a very simple question — Who do you trust more, people you see, or an invisible God?
Perhaps the evidence of which side we currently tend to favor will be found in our feelings about silence.
Most believe and act out of what they see as what makes most practical sense.
But then there are a few, an extreme who believe that the world operates by what is unseen.
These are the ones who march to the sound of a different drummer — and the funny thing is,
for some reason
they are the ones who
when circumstances call for it
calm storms and walk on water.
“Be still, and know that I am God.
I will be exalted among the nations,
I will be exalted in the earth!”
Psalms 46:10 (ESV)
