“Whoever has ears, let them hear.” 

Matthew 13:43

God has been challenging me to sit with him in silence.  He’s been challenging me to practice being silent before him versus always making my requests/concerns to him.  For those who don’t know me, this is not within my nature.  I’m a talker, always have been, always will be.  It’s hard for me to stay silent… but God has presented this challenge to me.    

A little while ago, I had one of those dreams that didn’t necessarily feel like a dream.  It was a dream that felt like a direct message from God- a message that he wanted me to hear, understand, and put into practice.  I dreamt that I was sitting in a therapy session and my therapist asked me a question.  She asked me a question and I started to answer her question, but she quickly interrupted me with another question.  A little taken aback, I then shifted from the one question I was answering to answering the second question she asked me.  Rather than her listening to my answer, she interrupted my second answer with another question.  This continued on for some time and I found myself quite frustrated and upset with her lack of listening skills.  Instead of the therapist letting me answer a question, she’d just continue to interrupt me with another question and there was no progress.  We were unable to get anywhere, unable to heal old wounds, unable to progress in our sessions because she’d just keep interrupting me with more questions.  When I woke up, my immediate thought was “wow, this is what I must do to God.  Rather than letting God answer my questions and concerns, I just offer up more questions and concerns.  Rather than sitting in silence with God and letting him speak, I do all the talking.”  At times I wonder why God has not answered, not even realizing that I haven’t even given him a chance to speak.

I’m not saying I had a prophetic dream or anything like that, but I do think God reveals things to us in our dreams that sometimes we are too blind to see during the day.  It made me think of how God used parables to explain things to people, this was my modern day parable through my dream.  Oftentimes we want God to talk to us, to reveal things to us, but we are too busy doing all the talking.  We want him to confirm our calling, confirm where he wants us to go with the next steps, but before he can share that, we give him more concerns and questions.  Do you get what I’m saying here?  We’re doing all the talking and lacking the listening skill.  We wonder why he seems silent, not even realizing we haven’t even given him a chance to speak back to us.  We are essentially in a one-sided conversation because we don’t let the other person speak.  “Whoever has ears, let them hear.” Matt. 13:43  You have ears, use them to listen to God.  My challenge to you is to let God speak, silence yourself before him and let him talk back.  

A couple weeks after I had the dream, God somehow brought me to Job 33, which affirmed the dream God gave me.  I was having a hard time focusing on God’s word because a dog was barking outside.  I became quickly frustrated and eventually plugged my ears to try and hear from God… in trying to drown out the noise around me, my breathing became louder.  Try it- plug your ears and let everything else get quieter, but your breath will then become louder.  In tuning out the outside noise, you can actually hear your breath in your lungs.  Pretty cool, right?  In that silence, God spoke to me.  God is the breath of life.  While I tuned out all the outside noise, all I could hear was the breath in my lungs, all I could hear was the very breath God had given me, the breath God breathes into me.  God is with us in the silence.  “The Spirit of God has made me; the breath of the Almighty gives me life.” Job 33:4 So take a moment to try it.  Plug your ears and listen to the very breath inside your lungs, the Spirit of God is inside you breathing in and out, God is with you in the silence.  Even when we don’t think we are hearing from God, close your ears, listen to your breath, He is with you, always… but sometimes we need to tune out all the distractions of the world and focus in on the breath that is and gives us life.  

“For God does speak- now one way, now another- though no one perceives it.  In a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falls on people as they slumber in their beds, he may speak in their ears and terrify them with warnings, to turn them from wrongdoing and keep them from pride, to preserve them from the pit, their lives from perishing by the sword.”  Job 33:14-18 God’s word affirms that God does speak, but sometimes we just aren’t aware.  God uses people, dreams, signs, nature and whatever else he wants to speak to us, yet “no one perceives it”.  We can get so drowned out by the world that we don’t even hear God speaking to us.  In reading these verses, it helped affirm that God gave me that dream for a reason- to remind me to listen to God, to silence myself before him.  If that didn’t put the nail in the coffin, the next few verses did.  “Pay attention, Job, and listen to me; be silent, and I will speak.  If you have anything to say, answer me; speak up for I want to vindicate you.  But if not, then listen to me; be silent and I will teach you wisdom.” Job 33:31-33 While this was Elihu who said this to Job, the Bible is God-breathed, meaning that it is inspired by God, through the Holy Spirit.  So when we see Elihu say this, we can trust that God himself is saying these words to us.  Read it again and think of God talking directly to you, “Listen to me, be silent and I will speak.  Listen to me, be silent, and I will teach you wisdom.”  God wants to talk, we just may not be listening.  If God seems quiet, silence yourself before him, plug your ears if you need to and listen to the very breath inside your lungs, the presence of the God almighty is within you and around you.  He is with you and breathes life into you.  

The noise around us will always be there, so plug your ears, drown out the noise and focus on the breath of life God has breathed into you, purposeful breath, each breath in and out has purpose, you are breathing because God gives you breath.  “Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.” Genesis 2:7 Here’s my final thought.  If you’re feeling lonely, confused on where God is, why he may seem silent or far, close your ears to the world, tune out the noise, and focus on the very breath that He has given you.  He is with you.  He is with you, even when the noise of the world seems too loud, we just need to practice tuning out the distractions and being silent before Him.