It was my first silent retreat—my first time stepping away from the ceaseless spin of life to be alone with God for a whole weekend. In a season loud with PE students and a baby and all the usual buzz of summer, I was ready to stop and listen to God. What would he say?
For several years, I’d been learning that an essential part of relationship-deepening conversation with God, as with anyone, is listening. If the Lord is my Shepherd (Psalm 23); my good Father (Luke 11:13); my source of wisdom (James 1:5); and the ageless Alpha and Omega who knows all and sees all (Job 28:24; 1 John 3:20; Revelation 22:13), why wouldn’t I—as his sheep (Isaiah 53:6), as his foolish, finite, and fragile child—want to listen more?
Entering a tree-shadowed path just off the retreat center’s parking lot, I fixed my whole being on God. Attentive, quiet, I was ready to hear the Universe Maker speak. But what I heard surprised me.
I heard nothing. No Bible verses. No guiding thoughts. No whispers from the secret chambers of my soul. Just silence.
What perhaps surprised me even more was my heart’s response: peace.
Alone in the presence of God, I didn’t need words. I was like a calmed and quieted child resting on her mother’s breast (Psalm 130). I was like Eve, walking with God in the cool of the day (Genesis 3:8). Just being with God was enough.
Though we can know God through the dialogue of prayer, we can also know him through the silence of prayer. Silence, rather than revealing a lack of intimacy, can instead prove its depth. Some of the most tender moments with my husband are those when neither of us speaks, when we’re not trying to gain anything from each other—when we are content just being together in each other’s presence. Moments of silence—lingering on the grass after a summer picnic, holding each other in times of sorrow, even being in the same room at the end of an ordinary day—can be more intimate than the deepest heart-to-heart. In the silences of joy and anguish and all the banalities of the everyday, we are invited to savor the ever-present nearness of Love himself. What if we were as content with God’s presence as a child who no longer demands milk from her mother’s body, who is content to rest under the crook of her neck, just be?
Lately I’ve wondered if the dynamic of silence in prayer is not emphasized more in Scripture because it is so obvious. The white spaces on the pages of the Bible, the Psalms’ selahs, Habakkuk’s prophetic call for the whole earth to be silent before the enthroned I AM (Habakkuk 2:20)—all invite us to close our mouths and simply relish God’s presence.
But what if God’s presence doesn’t feel like enough?
Many times, God feels silent at what seem to be the worst times. When I graduated from university, I had opportunities to teach English in Ethiopia or French in Niger. When I asked God for guidance on which job to take, I heard no response. In the crushing uncertainty, I fasted and prayed and wept. I tried to scry divine messages in songs on the radio, the passing comments of strangers, my feelings (all so topsy-turvy!), Bible readings, sermons, and conversations with trusted voices. Everything jumbled into one giant knot I couldn’t hope to untangle. Why didn’t God just write the answer in the sky?
When we’re speaking to someone and can’t hear what they say, we have a tendency to lean in closer. Their quietness accentuates our attentiveness. When I made pro and con lists about the two opportunities and nothing seemed clearer, I would fall to my knees in prayer and scour the pages of my Bible. My ears were as alert to the sound of God’s voice as a squirrel’s to human footfall. The orientation of my whole being shifted Godward as I waited, watched.
How beautiful the invitation to intimacy divine silence offers! We are beckoned to press closer into the Lover of our souls. Perhaps one reason God does not tell us the master plan for our life the moment we want to know it is that he wants us to seek him for each step of our journey, to walk with him as Adam and Eve did in the garden of Eden. God craves the intimacy of our presence so much that he invites us to be with him in our weary wandering and wondering (Matthew 11:28). Indeed, God’s ultimate dwelling place at the end of all time is with his people (Revelation 21:3).
In addition to attuning us to God’s voice and enfolding us in the intimacy of his presence, divine silence can also lead us to humbly accept our need for him. If we knew the next six steps of our lives, we could easily forget how much we need God, how profoundly dependent we are upon the One without whom we can do nothing (John 15:5). Our ache to hear God electrifies us to the reality that we need him with more desperation than we ever realized.
As the Good Shepherd, God will lead. In the right time. Eventually, just six weeks before I would board my flight, God led me to accept the teaching position in Ethiopia. For four years, I taught at an international mission school, one of the most painful and most joyous (how closely those two entwine!) experiences of my life. Under the bright mountain sun of Addis Ababa, I would meet people who would beautifully shape my life, including lifelong friends and my husband of nearly a decade.
When I look back at that season of confusion after graduation, I am inspired to look forward in trust. Trust in God’s goodness (Psalm 107:1). Trust like a child at utter repose on her mother’s breast. Trust that, though God seems silent, he is near, present, and abounding in inexpressible love (Ephesians 3:17–21). And that place of love and belonging centered in God’s presence—all we really long for—awaits us, here and now.
Photo credit: Emilee Carpenter
Elise Tegegne lives in Indianapolis with her husband and energetic two-year-old. Her work has appeared at Fathom, Plough, Risen Motherhood, and (in)courage, among others. She is writing a blog series called “Experiments in Inefficiency,” which seeks to find out what it means to live a Spirit-paced life. Read more of her words atelisetegegne.comor reach out on Instagram @elisetegegne.
