Silence is Golden

From the period of Thursday, 11:55pm until Saturday, 12:01 I did not talk to a single human being. Other than a very few amount of songs my computer cycled through mindlessly (which could have been hardly described as a conversation) I heard not once the voice of another person. After not hearing another person's voice for long enough I stopped talking myself. Immersing myself in conversational and social silence. The only things that remained were Donald Miller's Blue Like Jazz and the Word of God.

There have been many times where my Bible has jumped from its pages-that yes, quite frankly do have a certain sustained quality of being alive-and spoken to me(ok, not audibly for you super serious skeptics). This was different. It's one thing to think the words in your Bible are speaking directly to your life as if you were receiving a lecture from a good friend who had been watching your actions and decided that it was time for an intervention. It's a completely different feeling to have the notion that you are actually conversing with the Apostle Paul. Sitting down with him, snacking on some crackers while he sits across from you telling of journeys he has recently been on. You can see the weather lines in his face from stress as the Thessalonians chased him out of town on his second trip. You can see his joy when he talks about Philippi and his friends there. "It' s a glorious place... they have some problems, but I love them" he says.

Malachi's decrees for me to be faithful to my wife will still be ringing whenever I actually have a wife. His words have scared me enough to wonder how can I NOT be faithful to my wife? The wife I don't even know, the wife I long to know someday.

James is pleading with me now, to be a more patient friend. To be more patient as a boss. To be more patient as a brother, as a son, and as a husband. These trials I'm going through are only temporary, but how I react in this delicate time will shape the man I'm becoming. The man I'm always becoming. The man that will live out the rest of my life. James says I need that man to be strong, and I need that man to have an encouraging tongue. One of praise and not of degredation. A tongue of joy and not of hate. A tongue that worships God and not money or lust.

Paul, Malachi and James. Good friends of mine. You should have a chat with them. They'd love to talk to you.