Hearing God's Whisper: Embracing Silence and Solitude

1) "What about today, where God doesn't as often or frequently, speak audibly to us? It can happen, but it's far, far less frequently that we'll hear an audible voice from heaven. I think for many of us, that might freak us out a little bit. But God does still speak. In fact, he has never stopped speaking. And I would make a very bold, but I would say true statement if we look at Scripture. God speaks more now to us than he ever has in the past. God speaks through his word." [01:58] (39 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


2) "The question is not, does God speak today? The question is, are you listening? Are you providing space in your life to hear God's voice speak? We often assume that God only speaks through these dynamic events or in these overly spiritual ways. Where it's only in these massively huge spiritual moments where God would speak to us. Or through signs and wonders, these coincidences that come together, and that's how God speaks. It's the only way, but in doing so, in assuming that that's the only way that God speaks, we often will mistake our own thoughts for God's voice. And at the same time, we'll miss God speaking through the small things in life." [03:23] (48 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


3) "Silence and solitude before God are essential for direction, for strength, for renewal, and clarity in life. You might say that's a lot. I could have included more. But silence and solitude are essential before God for direction in life, for strength in our life, for renewal, and for clarity. We're going to break apart each and every one of these today as we look at scripture. I hope you have your Bibles with you. If you don't, that's okay. There's going to be a lot of flipping back and forth." [08:21] (29 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


4) "Solitude provides the space to listen for God's direction. Before making important decisions, we need to align our heart with God's will. And so I ask you, when you're making a major decision in your life, when you have something coming up that you need to do, maybe it's related to your job, maybe it's related to how you're going to raise your kids, maybe it's related to a relationship, and you say, man, I just need some wisdom here. Are you actually taking some time to go into solitude, to pray, and to align your heart with God's will?" [11:45] (34 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


5) "See, all too often when we want God to speak to us, we want his direction, but we aren't willing to wait. You might say, well, God doesn't need us to be quiet. God doesn't need us to be silent. God doesn't need us to have isolation. He's God. He could just speak. And if you're anything like me, you've been frustrated before when God, being God, doesn't just speak to you. Like, God, I have this major decision. Why won't you just tell me what to do? It's frustrating sometimes. I think it's frustrating because we as humans want things to be quick." [14:48] (36 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


6) "Silence and solitude is essential for direction in our life. Next, let's examine how silence and solitude before God are essential for strength and comfort and grief. I don't have to tell you that grief is a part of life. If you've lived really any amount of time, you've probably had grief over something. Perhaps it's the loss of a loved one. Perhaps it's the loss of a job. Many, many things that can cause grief. Crushing weight of responsibility. Whatever it is, grief is something that there is no escaping of. We can try to avoid it. We can try to shove our grief to the side, but that's only going to make the problem worse." [16:54] (43 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


7) "Silence and solitude are vital for dealing with grief. We can't run from it. We shouldn't try to avoid it. We should press into it. Get away from distractions. Go before the Lord. Give him our sorrow. Give him our grief. Another example, perhaps not one of loss. Maybe you're saying, I haven't lost anybody yet, but I feel defeated, and sometimes that defeat is crushing. We can look to Elijah, an Old Testament prophet. He had defeat in the wilderness, 1 Kings chapter 19, which is 4 through 8." [19:34] (39 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


8) "I want to ask the question, in our lowest moments, are we allowing God to renew our strength? God provided the meal. God provides for us. The rest that we need. Far too often, we fill these wilderness moments, we could say, with things to distract us from actually getting alone with the Lord. We feel so defeated, so we just go on our phone and start scrolling. We feel so defeated, so we just decide to fill our time with meaningless things. Things that in the moment just make us go completely blank, not thinking. Those things don't actually renew us." [23:00] (40 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


9) "Silence and solitude before God are essential for renewal and rejuvenation. Next, we see that they are essential for clarity and readiness. For clarity and readiness. I think often when we're going into a big season, we're going into something next. Maybe it's a new job. Maybe it's a new city that we're going to live in. Maybe some of you are about to have a child. Maybe you're about to get married. A big decision to have clarity stepping into that new season, to have readiness, to enter into it with excellence. We need to have time before the Lord." [26:45] (34 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


10) "So as we reflect on solitude, as we reflect on this, I want you to evaluate your current practice of seeking silence and solitude. I want to give you a very practical way that you can put this into routines and rhythms throughout your daily life. I don't have a slide for it, but I want you to write this down to put it in your phone, put it somewhere. And it's this, to divert daily. To get away for a few minutes every day, whether it's five minutes, whether it's 20 minutes, an hour, whatever it is, divert daily. Get away before the Lord and sit with him. Sit in silence if you need to. Pray." [29:06] (39 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)