Celtic Daily Prayer

Continuing with the Celtic Evening Prayer where  concentrates on God speaking to us.

Lord, You have always spoken

when time was ripe;

and though you be silent now,

today I believe.

For many disciples one of the issues is the seeming silence of God, or is it rather the noise all around that drowns out the still small voice. Or even is it as I recently read, “It's not that God is silent, it's that our distractions are sometimes too loud.” 

We read of such a situation in 1 Kings 19 that God taught Elijah a lesson. “Then he was told, “Go, stand on the mountain at attention before God. God will pass by.”

A hurricane wind ripped through the mountains and shattered the rocks before God, but God wasn’t to be found in the wind; after the wind an earthquake, but God wasn’t in the earthquake; and after the earthquake fire, but God wasn’t in the fire; and after the fire a gentle and quiet whisper.

Author Kathleen Norris used to play a game with elementary-school children in which she would make a deal with them. "First you get to make noise," she would bargain, "and then you’ll make silence."

The time of noise was always predictably chaotic -- shouting, pounding and stomping, like a football team exploding out of a locker room. But the period of silence that followed was unexpectedly passionate and creative. When the children were asked to write about it, reflects Norris, "their images often had a depth and maturity that was unlike anything else they wrote."

One boy discovered that "Silence is a tree spreading its branches to the sun."

One third-grader’s poem turned into a prayer: "Silence is spiders spinning their webs; it’s like a silkworm making its silk. Lord, help me to know when to be silent."

And a little girl offered a gem of spiritual wisdom that Norris finds herself returning to when her life becomes too noisy and distracting: "Silence reminds me to take my soul with me wherever I go" (Kathleen Norris, Amazing Grace: A Vocabulary of Faith [New York: Riverhead Books, 1998], 16-17).

When we follow the command of Jesus to be silent, we spread our branches to the sun and soak up the light of God’s love, forgiveness and peace. As Psalm 46 reads, “Stand silent! Know that I am God! I will be honoured by every nation in the world!”

Lord, help me to slow down and embrace stillness in my life. Teach me to recognise Your presence in the quiet moments and to trust in Your sovereignty. May I find peace and clarity as I rest in You. Amen.