Sometimes, I am my own worst enemy. Sometimes, I simply cannot resist speaking up and making clear exactly how foolish I am. Sometimes. Okay, way too often. I struggle with the difference between assertions and questions. Even when I try to use questions, they come out sounding like thinly disguised assertions – because they often are.
Why is silence is so difficult? Jesus did it. He didn’t answer His accusers. He didn’t feel the need to correct their foolish accusations. When they struck the truth, even obliquely, He affirmed it. Yet He never defended Himself. He was like a lamb led to slaughter, the Lamb of God, taking away the sin of the world.
The psalmist, probably David, reminds us of the power of silence:
My soul waits in silence for God only;
From Him is my salvation.
(Psalms 62:1 NASB)
In the NASB text, “waits” is in italics, which means this word has been added for clarity. Literally, it reads “Only to God silence my soul, from Him my salvation.” Which explains why it needed some clarity. Hebrew poetry is both beautiful and, well, difficult.
When we continue on in the psalm, though, it turns out that David is pointing out that the rest of his world seems out to get him – it’s noisy and chaotic, dangerous and deceitful. With God, though, it’s different.
Only to God can he find that quiet for his soul. Only before the presence of the True King can he find the peace that quiets the chaos around him. Why is that? Because as David approaches God, he becomes more aware that any hope of salvation, deliverance from his adversaries, any hope of seeing through the deceptions, all David needs is found in God.
Be comforted by salvation in our Creator, not in ourselves or through other creatures. I didn’t save myself, nor do I remain my Father’s child by my own efforts. I can wait for my Savior, even when it seems dark, when chaos surrounds me, when my paranoia sets in and my fears mushroom, when my imagination lies to me and friends don’t have time for me.
Only to God. Silence, my soul.
From Him my salvation.
Knothole Theology 