Silence as An Aid to Memory
So let's look at the four points that Paul S. Rees makes in his sermon on silence. The first is that silence is an aid to memory, and he says "it is when we are still that the past comes trooping back, perhaps to haunt us, perhaps to humble us, perhaps to make us happy."
And then he quotes from two places in Psalm 4, where David looks back at how God has helped him in the past. Interestingly, the NIV which I usually love doesn't translate the verbs as past tense, but more as a request – so where my NIV says "give me relief from my distress", the ESV says "You have given me relief when I was in distress", and verse 7 is "Fill my heart with joy when their grain and new wine abound" in the NIV, but in the ESV it says "You have put more joy in my heart than they have when their grain and wine abound." It seems that the translators saw the Hebrew differently in these verses.
Remembering God's Faithfulness in Quiet Moments
If we take the ESV's understanding, we see David looking back at how God helped and filled him in times past. In the stillness, these memories come to his mind and help him.
Now, Rees in his sermon quotes a lovely prayer, and he asks his listeners to pay attention to "the value of remembering and the peril of forgetting" in this prayer. Let me share it with you:
“Let me do my work each day, and if the darkened hours of despair overcome me, may I not forget the strength that comforted me in the desolation of other times. May I still remember the bright hours that found me walking over the silent hills of my early childhood, or dreaming on the margin of the quiet river, where a light glowed within me, and I promised my early God to have courage amid the tempests of the changing years. May I not forget that poverty and riches are of the spirit... Lift my eyes from the earth, and let me not forget the uses of the stars... Let me not follow the clamour of the world, but walk calmly in my path. Give me a few friends who will love me for what I am, and keep ever burning before my vagrant steps the light of hope. And though age and infirmity overtake me, and I come not within sight of the castle of my dreams, teach me still to be thankful for life.”
The Power of Quiet Reflection
Isn't that lovely? You see, in moments of stillness, where we "commune with our hearts on our beds and be still", to use the words from Psalm 4:4, we can look back and remember how God has done wonderful things, and how He will continue to do so, and how we can trust Him.
In the busy, noisy, clamouring world, we can hardly think on such things. But in the quiet, our memories of God's goodness have a chance to invigorate and uplift us.
Take some time to be still, to commune with your heart and with God, and consider how great He's been in the past, and how great He will continue to always be. You'll be blessed, in the quiet.
