The Sound of Silence

Cities are noisy. If you start listening intentionally to the background noise,you realise there’s a lot of noisy activity from cars, buses, trains to lawn mowers, building works, road works. It’s hard to hear the rustling of trees or the cicadas.

This week I escaped away from the city for a couple of days. On one of the days I walked up to a peninsula head and had a picnic lunch. I enjoyed the view of the surrounding bays, the islands, the sea. I also enjoyed the quiet. So quiet, so peaceful. But when I paid attention to the quiet, I realised I could hear the sound of the sea lapping at the beaches below me. I could hear the sound of the sea ebbing and flowing in the rock inlets. Combined was a beautiful symphony of water with different rhythms. It reminded me of he music you hear when watching discovery programmes of fish, or music that is played at Day Spas.

Sometimes in life we need to turn down the chatter of life around us, (and sometimes in us!) in order to intentionally tune into the quiet voice of God and to what He is saying to us at the moment. He always has something to say to us, it’s just that sometimes we can’t hear Him over the noise of life. He is always speaking to us. But like the noise of the city can drown out the sounds of nature, so it is when our lives get too busy, noisy we can drown out the voice of God. He doesn’t stop speaking.

In that case we don’t need a weekend break from the city (although I highly recommend it!), we need a spiritual break where we can tune into God. It’s a case of turning down the noise of life for a period – getting off social media, turning the phone and tv off, getting away from distractions, and then intentionally listening.

I intentionally paused and listened to the sound of silence and heard the symphony of water. It was glorious, beautiful, serene.

“And behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind tore the mountains and broke in pieces the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. And after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. And after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire the sound of a low whisper.” (1 Kings 19:11-12)

(The photo above is taken from my walk)