Silence Please
Silent therapy, in my opinion, is one of the most potent tools available for the wives out there. Forgetting a very special occasion or with just a wrong tone of voice, husbands, you’ll be in for an indefinitely long therapy of silence. I could just imagine how Adam felt like had Eve been its Inventor.
But this article is really not about marriage. I know it’s still February but I just want to share just how it felt like when “Selah” was first introduced in our church in 2006. Selah in School of Prayer and Intercession (SOPI) manual, Phase-1, Mod-1, Lesson-1 Explained, we were taught that
??Prayer is not the time to begin talking but to keep STILL, standing in the AWE of God?s presence and allowing Him to talk first. This is the time of SILENCE after offering your praises and worship and words of adoration to Him.?
Without disrespect to its innovators, it really felt like we were subjecting God to a silent treatment by spending more than half an hour in silence, “waiting,” as it is was also called, with eyes closed. Frankly speaking, I almost dozed off until someone in our prayer group started seeing things. A “red umbrella” she said. Not that I believe in luck yet still, lucky for her, she will now be spending the rest of her time figuring out what her vision meant, and the right interpretive tool for her situation appears to be a Bible Concordance. With it, she formulated a relevant meaning for the group to appreciate.
Please don’t get me wrong. I admire their innovation. Nothing beats a fresh activity for a prayer meeting and some of us really liked it. However, there were some of us who came home disappointed because they were not able present their own prayer requests.
The other thing that came to my mind when we first did this was “transcendental meditation.” This technique requires silence for at least 20 minutes with eyes closed. It is based on the Vedic tradition of enlightenment in India and was popularized by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in the mid-1950s. It’s really not very hard to see their similarities but in Luke 11:2-4, the Lord Jesus said:
?When you pray, SAY: our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us day by day our daily bread. And forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who is indebted to us. And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.”
He did not teach his disciples: “When you pray, KEEP STILL, BE SILENT AND LISTEN FIRST?” Instead he said “When you pray, SAY…” In Mat. 6:9 we read: “In this MANNER, therefore, pray: our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name?” The manner is not silent either.
Vines Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words gave four Greek verbs used for prayer in the New Testament scripture: (1) euchomai, (2) proseuchomai, (3) erotao, and (4) deomai. As you may all be aware, Verbs are action words in contrast to keeping still or remaining in silent which require a person to be passive. An example of the use of erchomai according to Vines is “? ‘I would’ (Acts 26:29), or ‘wished for,’ (Acts 27:29) (RV marg. ‘prayed’), or ‘could wish’?”? For erotao it’s “?to ask? should make request.” As for the Greek nouns, they were: (1) euche? which is a vow (Acts 18:18), (2) proseuche which is a prayer to God, (3) deesis or for supplication and, (4) enteuxis which is used for intercession in general.
All these words in no way indicate that prayer has got to be 90% silent time, especially in a congregational setting. But in order to be fair, SOPI’s intent is really to bring us in awe of God’s presence. Admittedly, this is something to be admired, however, to say that the Bible teaches that prayer is not the time to begin talking to God but to keep silent really does not do justice to the what the nature of prayer is all about.
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