finding god – Upper Room Media Blogs

Silence: The Loudest Sound

by Veronia
Original post by Becoming Fully Alive blog site

In a world that is so noisy, silence has become such an alien.

Noise shadows our thoughts, suffocates our senses and shuts up our hearts.

I am no longer able to live in the present moment. I am no longer able to know reality, to live my reality.

Noise imprisons us in a cave where we are left alone, with nothing and no one to accompany us.

People pay thousands of dollars for an ideal ‘getaway’ from the noise and busyness of everyday life.

What if I told you, you don’t have to spend thousands of dollars to get away from it all? What if I told you, that silence is within you…

The most central part of us isn’t our brain but our heart: the part that tells us who we really are, who we ought to become, what we long for, our hurts, our fears.

When I choose noise, when I choose to be constantly surrounded by the noise of the television, music, people… but worst of all, when I choose to be surrounded by the noise of my mobile phone.

Yes we can turn our phones to silent, where we can’t ‘hear’ it but there’s a deafening noise our phones make that we aren’t aware of.

I recently discovered this when I made the decision to switch my phone off for a whole entire week in order to practice silence.

Wow.

What a difference.

I realised the constant checking of my phone, that constant ‘go to’ when I have some down time was causing such a disturbance even into the depth of my soul. We have created an entire world through these small devices. We’ve been fooled into the notion that being connected to everyone I know and connected to the rest of the world means I am not living in isolation. We think if we didn’t have our phones we would be completely lost, not knowing what’s going on with our dear ones or what the news is telling us to ‘pray’ for.

I recognised my phone made some sort of internal noise; a screeching noise that deafened my internal ears and my inner heart. I was tricked into thinking that I was living in the present moment, as I would browse through the ‘current’ events. In reality I was living in a trapped world, where there was no past, present or future. The present moment, the now was slipping away from me, blinding me from who I am and suffocating my ability to interact with my environment and grow.

I was no longer aware of what was before me; the present moment that testifies to my being was gone.

I was disabled.

I was unable to love who was with me in that present moment. I was unable to engage in the nature around me. I was unable to grow to a fountain of life.

This deep piercing noise caused a division between my mind and my heart. It muted the ache in my heart and I became numb to what was truly hurting and tormenting me. I did not know what my heart was yelling out to me. I knew my heart was sick, but how sick? What was causing my heart to ache?

What is the remedy for this?

Silence.

Silence is the absence of noise that surrounds us along with an interior state, which takes us to the presence of God.

Silence leads us towards the centre, the human heart; the throne of God.

Silence liberates us from the enslavement of the past and the future.

Even when I am not occupied with something physical in my hand, half of the time I am either thinking of the past and the other half I am thinking about the future.

Silence cannot merely be read or talked about, but it is to be experienced.

It is lived.

It is a way of life.

When words are forsaken, a new awareness is welcomed.

It is not just simply an ending to words but it makes sense to all that is both spoken and unspoken.

Silence is fullness, not emptiness.

It is not absence, but the awareness of a Presence.

Silence is a way of watching and listening intently to what is happening within us and around us.

It is stopping interiorly and digging into the cellars of the heart.

Silence is a challenge and when we refuse to take up this challenge, we deny ourselves of what we ought to know about ourselves. As a result we live a life less than we are truly called to be. The ultimate sin is not pride; it is the forgetfulness of who we are. This is a great catastrophe.

Do not miss the opportunities of silence that are given to us each new day; a silent moment alone, a walk alone, when we are stuck in traffic, waiting for the bus, a silent moment in the presence of a dear friend. We should be so willing to enter in those times of silence and fathom them.

We are what we do with the silence that is given to us.

At the same time, silence needs to be cultivated.

Silence needs to be given it’s proper time and place in our day. It needs to be practiced.

Silence is almost a paradox in our time as it is perceived as something negative: that quiet person in the corner who doesn’t want to socialise, an ‘awkward’ silence with someone we don’t know very well, or the absence of God’s voice.

But it is in silence where God created.

It is the ambiance and the environment.

The sacred space into which God speaks His Divine Words, both to create the world and to save it from death and corruption.

God spoke life in silence.

God wants to speak in silence today, now, in my very own silence.

I challenge you this week, the holiest week of the year, to put away that which steals your inner silence. Be silent before the Holy One that you may receive His Life, His Power, His Glory, His Blessings and His Majesty.

He has become our Salvation.

Original blog found at – http://becomingfullyalive.com/silence-the-loudest-sound/

My Coming to Faith

by Anthony Zaccariotto

I come from an Italian Catholic background, was baptised at birth by my parents and received Holy Communion when I was 8 or 9 years old. It may have been as a means of pleasing my grandparents and keeping tradition but, after this, I never learnt about Christ or the Christian faith and religion seemed to be disregarded after that.

I was very spoilt growing up, my father would give me anything I wanted and more. Throughout high school and in my early twenties I was lusting, chasing girls, going to parties, drinking, smoking, spending, travelling, and was never really too concerned with study. I have been working ever since I finished high school and the majority of it has been in my father’s businesses.

Often in my life I felt very lonely, empty and like no one understood me. I was never satisfied no matter what I did whether it was partying, sex, drugs, drinking, smoking, travelling or making money. My heart was yearning for something that nothing in this world was able to satisfy. There was always this gap inside me that never seemed to be filled. No matter who I talked to in my life, I didn’t get an answer that helped me. Not from my family, friends or even my girlfriend at the time. This began my search for meaning and truth.

I started my search in literature; self-help books, philosophy, biographies etc. They were very interesting and did help quite a bit but they were still not filling the gap. A lot of them talked of success, ambition, contentment, gratitude and staying positive but they were not answering my questions. I can understand when people want to set goals, achieve success or want a better life for themselves and their families, but I did not really know what to do with them as I had been spoilt growing up and already knew that wealth and success was not enough. I have met many rich, wealthy and successful people and to my amazement it almost seemed like they were the ones who were struggling the most inside. I hope I don’t sound arrogant when I write this I am just opening up on how I felt.

Very shortly after my search I ran into a young man who I hadn’t seen since I was 14 years old. His name is Tony, and he also goes St Marks Church. I saw him at a cafe one day right next to the office where I work. Tony and I were good friends when we were in high school and would hang out quite a bit. However, this boy was probably the wildest, craziest, most disruptive student in the school. He would be cursing at teachers, vandalising as well as, receiving detentions and suspensions. It wasn’t long after commencing year 8 that he was told to leave the school. He gives me full permission to tell this story by the way, so I am not going behind his back here. We both still joke about it with each other.

Anyway, I see him at this cafe and our faces just light up, I sat with him and we had a big conversation. I noticed however something was very different about him. He was the exact opposite of what I remembered. I understand people mature in life as the years go by, but this was something way out of the ordinary. He told me about his story after he left high school; how he got into a bit of trouble, how struggled through pain and how he needed help and eventually found his faith in Christ.

Now this really intrigued me as it was not like anything I had ever encountered before.

Not long after this, I began to open up about my story to him. About how I was going through a tough time in my life trying to find answers, looking for meaning and purpose and trying to find what the universe wanted from me.

Tony said to me with great confidence and a cheeky little smile that what I needed was a Saviour and that he had one for me. He made me laugh and anyone who knows him knows how hilarious this man can be. I dismissed everything he said because it just sounded silly and religion was a topic I was not interested in.

After this run into each other we exchanged numbers and continued to meet up. It turns out he worked only a few doors down from my office. I kept opening up to him about I felt and how I was just sick of the life I was living. Even though to many people out there I had the ideal life, to me it didn’t feel that way.

Tony continued on how he understood what I was going through. He explained that I needed to pray and I needed to have faith in God but it still seemed silly to me. I’ll give you a direct quote from Tony: ‘Mate scrap all those books that you are reading, there is only one book you should be reading and that’s the Bible’. Anyone who knows Tony will know exactly how he would have said that. One day down the track he was even kind enough to buy me a Bible and other books about The Church such as ‘The Fear of God’, ‘Return to God’, ‘Love the summit of virtues’ – all books written by Pope Shenouda.

The whole thing still seemed ridiculous to me but I told him I would at least give it a shot, after all he was kind enough to get me these books. I started with Genesis and straight away I knew I was not interested, especially with what the world had programmed into my mind about ‘reality’, ‘evolution’, ‘science burying God’ and the whole lot. So I put it down and dismissed the whole thing. By the way, I need to add in a quote here from C.S. Lewis “a young man who wishes to remain a sound atheist cannot be too careful of his reading”.

He told me to come along with him to church and just give it a try. It was the night we had Gary Raymond preaching along with some of the fathers in the church. Probably some of the greatest sermons I have ever heard and they touched me in a very profound way. Soon I did some more research on the church, its history, its beliefs, Christianity and of course science. I was hungry for answers and the truth. I eventually found it. I guess it’s true when they say that when the student is ready the teacher will appear. A little J.P. Morlan quote to everyone who reads this -‘God maintains a delicate balance between keeping his existence sufficiently evident so people will know He’s there and yet hiding His presence enough so that people who want to choose to ignore Him can do it. This way, their choice of destiny is really free’.

I could go on and on here but I am trying to summarise as briefly as I can.

I had a meeting shortly after with Father Mark and we had a very nice talk. He was even kind enough to welcome me into the Coptic Church which was a real honour. This church had some of the most wonderful, kind and loving people I had ever met, mong many other wonderful attributes. The rest is history from there.

My closing statement to all you readers is best summarised by Ravi Zaccharias and Bill Craige: I have travelled the world, I have searched high and low, and I have found nothing that satisfies my mind, my heart and the deepest longing of my soul like Jesus does. If you are sincerely seeking God I promise he will make his existence evident for you. God bless you all and I can’t wait for you the reader to come and join me and transform the way I did.