Silence and growth

"It was the quietest wood you could possibly imagine. There were no birds, no insects, no animals, and no wind. You could almost feel the trees growing. The pool he had just got out of was not the only pool. There were dozens of others - a pool every few yards as far as his eyes could reach. You could almost feel the trees drinking the water up with their roots. This wood was very much alive." C.S.Lewis - The Magician's Nephew

Sometimes breaking silence is useful even if you have nothing to say. If only because saying something gives a basis for new thoughts to crystallise upon.

Reflecting on my last post I realise that it is not so much the quality of the silence which is different, but the emotional state I am in as I experience it. This may be so obvious that it hardly needs stating, but I found it a helpful thought. Why? Because my emotional state is only part of the equation. God's view of the silence may be completely different.

Occasionally I am asked to preach. Initially I used to worry about this. Now I find I quite enjoy it. Not least because I am sure that I learn far more from it than I am able to pass on. The last time I preached I was given a free topic, and I chose the life of Abraham. In preparing, I found myself wondering how Abraham coped with the silence. From God's initial call to the fulfillment of the promise he waited twenty-five years. And if the bible records every conversation God had with him, for the majority of those years God was silent.

The next line of the Pink Floyd quotation I used in my last blog is "of promises broken". If the story of Abraham teaches anything it is that God keeps his promises. Just because God was silent it didn't mean he was not active, or that Abraham was not growing.