Scripture: "My soul is silent unto God." "My soul, be thou silent unto God; for my expectation is from Him."—Ps. Ixii. 1, 5.
When man in his littleness and God in His glory meet, we all understand that what God says has infinitely more worth than what man says. And yet our prayer so often consists in the utterance of our thoughts of what we need, that we give God no time to speak to us. Our prayers are often so indefinite and vague. It is a great lesson to learn, that to be silent unto God is the secret of true adoration. Let us remember the promise, "In quietness and confidence shall be your strength."
"My soul, wait thou only upon God; for my expectation is from Him."
"I will wait for the Lord; my soul doth wait, and in His word do I hope."
It is as the soul bows itself before Him to remember His greatness and His holiness, His power and His love, and seeks to give Him the honour and the reverence and the worship that are His due, that the heart will be opened to receive the Divine impression of the nearness of God and of the working of His power.
O Christian, do believe that such worship of God—in which you bow low and ever lower in your nothingness, and lift up your thoughts to realize God's presence, as He gives Himself to you in Christ Jesus—is the sure way to give Him the glory that is His due, and will lead to the highest blessedness to be found in prayer.
Do not imagine that it is time lost. Do not turn from it, if at first it appears difficult or fruitless. Be assured that it brings you into the right relation to God. It opens the way to fellowship with Him. It leads to the blessed assurance that He is looking on you in tender love and working in you with a secret but Divine power.
And as at length you become more accustomed to it, it will give you the sense of His presence abiding with you all the day. It will make you strong to testify for God. Someone has said, "No one is able to influence others for goodness and holiness, beyond the amount that there is of God in him." Men will begin to feel that you have been with God.
"The Lord is in His holy temple; be silent before Him, all the earth." (Hab. ii. 20).
"Be silent, O all flesh, before the Lord: for He is raised up out-of His holy habitation" (Zech. ii. 13).
