Some practical application – Do you think they are right?
Links/credits at the end
The article from HuffPost states that a World Health Organization report called noise pollution a “modern plague“. The article says that;
Silence relieves stress and tension.
Silence replenishes our mental resources
In silence, we can tap into our imagination
Getting quiet can regenerate brain cells
This, put another way, is the same thing as transforming, or renewing your mind, and stated in Romans 12:2 where it says; Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.
“Unnecessary noise is the most cruel absence of care that can be inflicted on sick or well.”
Florence Nightingale – Founder of modern nursing.
“Silence first began to appear in scientific research as a control or baseline, against which scientists compare the effects of noise or music. Researchers have mainly studied it by accident, as physician Luciano Bernardi did in a 2006 study of the physiological effects of music. “We didn’t think about the effect of silence,” he says. “That was not meant to be studied specifically.” (See link below to continue reading the study.)
This research began by playing quiet music, then “Bernardi and his colleagues discovered that randomly inserted stretches of silence also had a drastic effect, but in the opposite direction. In fact, two-minute silent pauses proved far more relaxing than either “relaxing” music or a longer silence played before the experiment started.”
” The blank pauses that Bernardi considered irrelevant, in other words, became the most interesting object of study. Silence seemed to be heightened by contrasts, maybe because it gave test subjects a release from careful attention. “Perhaps the arousal is something that concentrates the mind in one direction, so that when there is nothing more arousing, then you have deeper relaxation,” he says. “
I found this fascinating – I hope you did too!
“All unhappiness of men, arises from one simple fact; they cannot sit quietly in their chamber.”
Blaise Pascal – French mathematician,physicist, inventor, write, theologian.
For the final part of this post, I’ve linked a six minute video without music, just nature sights and sounds.
Won’t you take some time, two minutes, four minutes, six?
See if it has an effect on you.
Can you share what you experienced?
Silent Time
Here are the links and credits for what I have used here;
I’ve gotten out of the habit of hearing His voice.
I have some questions here;
First of all – Who is “He”?
Nehemiah 9:6 from the Holy Bible says this;
“You are the Lord, you alone. You have made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with
all their host, the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in
them; and you preserve all of them; and the host of heaven worships you.
If that’s the case, and I believe it is, then
that is a voice I really want to hear!
Why do I want to hear His voice?
Beginning to hearing His voice, for me anyway, began with an intense longing inside of me to find out what more there could possibly be to my life.
You know, the life that goes through the same cycles of disbelief,
low self esteem, caring so much what others think, at my own expense.
Expensive, because the voices I was hearing were telling me just
how worthless I was. I had a longing to hear just one good thing about myself
that I could hang my hat on. Something I could believe and hold on to.
That longing wanted to know who I was; all the while knowing that
I could believe a lie, just as easily as I could believe the truth.
To avoid the lie, I had to find the right voice. There are cacophonies of voices out there just trying to be heard. Which one is the right one?
I believe
it’s the maker of heaven and earth!
How do you hear His voice in the first place?
In order to sort through that longing, there
has to be quiet.
Now MY quiet, will likely be different than
yours.
When I want to get to this place of hearing,
I require three things.
Absolute
quiet.
My Bible.
A pad of
paper and a writing utensil.
The absolute quiet is to get my mind off of everything that distracts. Even lovely music can be distracting. (I’m finding that now even while writing this)
I need my Bible. It has a great concordance (an
alphabetical list of the words present in a text, usually with citations of the
passages concerned.) in the back, so I can look up scripture by words or
topics. I can search out any topic that is on my heart.
Then I can meditate on this word.
This meditation is not the same as emptying
the space between my ears. Instead, it fills up all the empty space inside, by
telling me the truth; about me, about God, about my life; past, present and
future.
The pad of paper? My brain is notorious for running me off in a different direction while I’m trying to concentrate on being quiet. Anything that pops into my head and interrupts gets written down.
It’s safe on that paper, I won’t forget. I’ll pick it up later.
It’s calming, when you know you won’t forget
every little nuance at it passes by your brain.
How do you continue to hear His voice?
I hear his voice by being quiet enough to let the words I’ve read roll around in my heart and mind.
I let them roll until they make sense. Until
they become real to me.
I really dislike the way the word meditation is
used in some forums. I’m speaking of the meditation on God’s word,
and what it means to me. Not meditation that is emptying my mind. That
is a whole different thing.
Instead, I prefer a meditation that asks; What
do these words say? What do they mean to me? How can I put them into practice?
Once you have hear His voice, you will recognize it when you hear it again. John 10:27 says clearly; My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.
Wow. He knows me – I want to know His voice!
How do you get back to it again after being away?
The dangerous part is in the drifting away. You release the habit for a day, and then a week, and then a month. No big, drastic changes.
You still hear His voice. But here’s the
catch; after a month, the voice gets quieter, and you realize (maybe) that you
have been going on memory, and that you haven’t “heard” anything new
for quite some time.
Memory, like muscles, can get flat after
periods of not being used.
Notice, the first thing I said was that it is a habit. It is most definitely a habit.
The first step to take is to get back to your
DAILY reading. It need not be chapter upon chapter. Just a
few paragraphs maybe.
We used to have a pastor who told us to
“Read till you burn.” That sounds funny coming from a pastor, whose
job is to insure that you don’t burn 🙂
But what he was trying to tell us, was that
we needed to read the word until something came alive in our heart; until our
heart caught that spark.
When that happens – You’re hearing God’s voice. He is speaking to you.
I’ve read the same thing several times over
my lifetime, and then one time I will read it, and it is like the words jumped
right off the page.
They bring something to life in me. They
spark a realization in me about _________________! Whatever it is I’m reading
about.
When I begin to roll those verses around in my heart and mind, they become a part of me. My soul and my spirit; my insides; are renewed. I can see an action that needs to be taken, or a mind set that needs to be tweeked.
James 1:22-25 (ICB) says this; Do what God’s
teaching says; do not just listen and do nothing. When you only sit and listen,
you are fooling yourselves. A person who hears God’s teaching and does
nothing is like a man looking in a mirror. He sees
his face, then goes away and quickly forgets what he looked like. But the
truly happy person is the one who carefully studies God’s perfect law that makes
people free. He continues to study it. He listens to God’s teaching and does
not forget what he heard. Then he obeys what God’s teaching says. When he does
this, it makes him happy.
This quiet time, this hearing His voice; it
gives me peace, and it carries with me throughout my days.
It makes it so that even the harshest of circumstances can be faced with some sort of calm, peace and joy.
Significant Encounters 
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