Quiet Praise

“What do you do when God is silent?” she asks me on the other end of the line.

And I nod long and quiet because I have felt it deep in my bones, that kind of silence.

It's a silence like I have only heard in the forest where cars and phones and electricity and the hum of technology disappear into a void of non-existence. Each tree containing a type of silence that only creaks as it sways and bends in the breeze. Each blade of grass keeping quiet with the hush of bees wings hoovering near. Each leaf and needle clapping in whisper like worship.

That kind of silence sits in the soul awaiting answers.

I have learned that this kind of quiet proffers praise.

It is in God's silence that I have suffered to learn true worship is an act of waiting.

For God alone my soul waits in silence; from him comes my salvation. PSALM 62:1

When in and among the wilderness, the collective voices of the forest give distinct and recognizable tones. The rustling poplars, the whispering pines, the mocking jays, the chattering squirrels. And I can hear the ways they speak praise with all creation.

All the ways God's love outnumbers the grains of sand, the blades of grass, the heads of wheat, the needled pine, the pedaled wildflower, the hairs of beast, and legs of insect.

And if he loves me in so many ways, might I also begin to count the ways my soul magnifies the Lord?

So that through the seconds, and minutes, and hours, and days, and weeks, and years, I may credit Him with all the loving-kindness and tender mercies he has given me?

What offering is there more acceptable to God than thus throughout the day to quit the things of outward sense, and to withdraw to worship Him within the secret places of the soul?

—Maxims of Brother Lawrence

When God is silent, retreat with him there. Seek him in the quiet place. Be still and know.

Soon, when your heart is humbled and soul surrendered, you will hear that unmistakable still, small Voice, and you will know His heart by its sound.