I happened to rest my hand on my cello strings during a song one Sunday, while I had no part to play and was just listening. I found that if I rested my hand lightly enough, I could feel sympathetic vibrations through my strings, as they picked up the frequencies of the other instruments and singers. If I placed my hand too hard on the strings, I felt nothing; placed lightly enough, I could feel the music, coursing through the cello strings and even the entire wooden body of the instrument.
God must enjoy when we are quiet, when our minds are calm, and we are able to hear Him. Perhaps, if we are still enough, our whole bodies might resonate with His words!
Teachers of young children know this trick, that if they speak quietly when the kids are getting too loud, the children will often quiet down to be able to listen. Is that maybe why God speaks softly to us so often? To make us stop our busyness and really try to listen to Him? Sometimes, the most reverential worship occurs in moments of complete silence.
God wanted to speak to Elijah once, when the prophet was filled with fear, and distraught from what was happening in his world. Elijah might have wished for God to speak loudly to him, to tell him with power that everything would be alright. Instead, this is what happened:
The LORD said, “Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the LORD, for the LORD is about to pass by.” Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the LORD, but the LORD was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake came a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper. When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave. Then a voice said to him, “What are you doing here, Elijah?”
1 Kings 19:11-13
Then, the Lord spoke to him, encouraged him, and gave him the plans for what to do next, but only after Elijah quieted himself enough to hear the whisper of God. If we are filled with fears and anxiety, and the world seems so loud we can’t hear ourselves think, then we need to find a way to quiet our hearts and minds. To stop tooting our own horns, to turn our cell phones off, to quit focusing on our next words and actions, and to just…listen. Ready to resonate with His Word.