When God Feels Quiet - Your Nightly Prayer - April 27th

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Your Nightly Prayer

When God Feels Quiet
Your Nightly Prayer
by Peyton Garland

TONIGHT'S SCRIPTURE

“This is what the Sovereign Lord, the Holy One of Israel, says: ‘Only in returning to me and resting in me will you be saved. In quietness and confidence is your strength…’” - Isaiah 30:15 (NLT)

SOMETHING TO PONDER

I groaned when my phone revealed the long, ugly truth. My average daily screen time was over 11 hours. It wasn’t because of Facebook, Instagram, or even my unhealthy relationship with Amazon Prime. It was nearly all because of YouTube. My two-year-old son loves music. It’s a bit scary how attuned he is with notes, rhythms, and sounds, but it certainly makes me wonder if music won’t be a gift God has given Him to serve the Kingdom. What an honor and joy to watch that opportunity unfold! However, the constant music, the incessant noise, is overwhelming. There are days when the sensory overload is debilitating. I crave silence. It’s what I think about and long for all day… until I get it once my son goes to bed for the night. Then I’m left thinking, “What do I do with this silence?”

It’s a modern problem that plagues many of us. We are constantly exposed to noise through one technological device or another. The noise is so steady, strong, and eerily dependable that when we don’t have a phone, tablet, or television remote within reach, we grow anxious. We get fidgety. We don’t know how to function. Yet, tonight’s verse says it’s in these quiet moments that Christ grows our confidence. It’s where He increases our understanding of who He is, and the more we truly lean into His character and all its dependable beauty, the deeper our faith grows. It lets us weather seasons when we don’t feel that we hear Him as loudly as we’d like. But if God feels too quiet, consider if you’ve allowed yourself the time and space to sit in silence to truly hear Him. We don’t like it when our spouse or a friend scrolls their phone while we share something personal, so why would we put God through the same thing? Why would we expect to hear Him loud and clear when our hearts, minds, and bodies are filled with constant noise?

I’m not a theologian. I’m certainly no master of the Christian faith, either. But I am someone who knows what it means to live with a debilitating mental disorder that invades so much of my head and heart that I leave little room for God’s voice to take center stage in my mind. And even though my disorder is a clinical, biological barrier, it’s still within my capacity as a Christian who longs for open communication with God to do everything to quiet the noise and make space for a God who isn’t nearly as silent as we believe. In my world, this looks like attending bi-weekly therapy appointments to work through mental health problems, listening to that still, small voice telling me to put down my phone and notice the world around me, or gritting through the tantrum when I tell my son that mama needs a few minutes of quiet to regain her mental, emotional, and spiritual composure.

When God feels quiet, consider if it’s a one-way street you are demanding He walk, a street where you want His messages painted on the sidewalks, yet you’re blinding your eyes with the needless chatter from the world. The Christian faith is rooted in Christ’s blood, salvation, which we can’t earn, but it’s grown through our willingness to get in the dirt, till the soil, and do the hard work to produce a harvest of open conversation with our Savior. There, we find the strength, confidence, and faith only God can give.

YOUR NIGHTLY PRAYER

Father,
In a noisy world, prepare my heart to seek moments of quiet to invite you into conversation. Reveal where I allow the loud, incessant screams of society to clog my head and heart. Grant me forgiveness for demanding that you do all the communicative work alone. Thank you for your mercy, grace, and voice that’s always constant, ready, and willing to speak into my life. I love you, Lord, and I praise you for your peace and presence.
Amen.

THREE THINGS TO MEDITATE UPON

If you have a smart device, note your weekly screen time report. Consider which apps consume most of your time, and ask yourself why.
Schedule 2-3 times each week to put all tech devices away and simply sit in God’s presence for 10-15 minutes. (This can be part of your routine quiet time, or it can be something you add throughout your weekly schedule.) Rest in silence, allowing God to clear your head and heart.
Journal how these quiet times go. Take note if you start feeling more comfortable in the silence or sense God’s presence more strongly as you stay committed to your quiet routine.

Reflect on tonight’s prayer and share how God met you there. Join the Your Nightly Prayer discussion on the Crosswalk Forum.

Peyton Garland is an author, editor, and boy mama who lives in the beautiful foothills of East Tennessee. Subscribe to her blog Uncured+Okay for more encouragement.