Silent Night
Let me not be put toshame, O Lord, for I call upon You; let the wicked be put to shame, let them be silent in Sheol Psalm 31:17 NASB
Silent– Did you notice David’s poetic parallelism? First, don’t let me be put to shame for I call upon You. Implication: those who are exonerated by God have something to say in the public arena. Their reputations are intact. They are recognized for their faithfulness.
What is the parallel (in this case, the antithetic parallel)? Silence. Shame for those who do not follow the Lord, whose ways produce unrighteousness, means that they have nothing to say. They are ostracized from the public arena. Their voices carry no weight. Even in She’ol, where all conversation is muted and weak, they cannot speak.
Did you catch the implication? To be human is to be in conversation. To be removed from conversing is to be as good as dead. God designed us to converse with each other and with Him. That’s why He did not stop with Adam. Adam needed the woman to discover what it meant to be a being in conversation with others. What keeps us human is interaction.
The life of the hermit, the vow of silence, the convent and the monastery don’t seem to be biblical. Yes, the desert fathers felt they had to run away from civilization in order to maintain purity, but I’m not so sure that was the intended plan. Desperate times might require desperate measures and the collapse of the Empire was certainly a desperate time, but it seems as though the biblical ideal is suffering involvement, not protective escape. Living hell might just be the place where there is nothing to say and no one to hear it even if you attempted to speak. For the ancient Hebraic world, being human meant speaking—to God and men. Shame was the great enemy of humanity because it left its victims without an audience. “He’s not worth listening to,” is still a terrible judgment.
There is a place where silence is holy, but that doesn’t mean there is nothing to say. The created universe sings God’s praises without words. But for David, this kind of silence, dāmam “is often found in a context of catastrophe and mourning.”[1] It is the end of things, not a pause for the living.
Conversations often require taking a breath. The words stop. The participants reflect. Then the interaction continues. Sometimes it seems as if we “take a breath” in our relationship with God. There is a pause in the play. A time to reassess. But that’s all it is: a pause. If it lasts longer than that, chances are we’re dying.
Topical Index: silence, dāmam, shame, Psalm 31:17
[1]Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament. 1999 (R. L. Harris, G. L. Archer, Jr. & B. K. Waltke, Ed.) (electronic ed.) (193). Chicago: Moody Press.
I believe all true communication – what Paul refers to as “conversation” – is a tacit agreement to be a conduit for heaven to each other. Ask most people who speak or perform before audiences, and they will admit that some audiences are hard to perform for or speak to, and some bring out hidden inspiration. I think the ears are as important to a conversation as the speech, for the listener directs the symphony.
I realized this late in life. I thought that I must heed unrighteousness coming out of the mouths of others just as respectfully as righteousness, or else the person would feel rejected. I still think we must never reject others, but some people are so toxic that it is not safe to listen to them with the ears of the flesh, for that attention just feeds the negativity, and we both end up shamed. So how do we listen to toxic speech? I learned to pray for God’s ears to hear words that are obviously not from God. When I did that, I began to learn that God hears things differently than we do. He hears the heart. We may want to avoid the hurting hearts of toxic people, but I think the only safe way to be around them is to listen for the unspoken cry for help that lies underneath the demonic possession. I learned something else, too. When you put on the ears of heaven, the demonic knows it. I have seen people pitch some weird fits and accuse me of some strange stuff, but more often, they just shut up or switch the subject, and sometimes they are able to resist the negative addiction and enjoy a natural conversation. For a little while, they are free to breathe the air of heaven.
It took me a long time, myself, to realize that all the negativity – the shaming thoughts and toxic emotions – could go, and I could stay, as I slowly learned that if it isn’t from heaven, it isn’t from me, either. Fear, guilt and shame are not from heaven, and I am not asked to put up with them, either. I think that shame, along with fear and guilt, etc. exists to show us the places we are not ourselves, but with the gospel, we have been given a Way to “recover ourselves out of the snare of the devil” (2Tim. 2:26) and become free to express the heart of heaven again. Halleluah!
Wow, Laurita, thank you.
This reminds me that conversation in Hebrew thought is the responsibility of the one who is hearing, not the one who is speaking. In other words, Hebrew is a receptor language, opposed to a transmitter language. If you speak it is my responsibility to listen and understand what you say, not the other way around. Indo-european languages tend to be transmitter languages where the responsibility for communication falls on the one speaking. We see this all the time in the way our education system works. In Hebrew, if I don’t HEAR you, then no communication has occurred.
As public speakers, you know where the true hearing is taking place.
You can see it in their faces. Their eyes do all the listening!
Excellent word. Recalls to mind the fact that Man looks on the outward appearance but the Lord looks on the heart. David was a man after God’s own heart, If we can listen, we listen to what is not being said. He hears the cries of our hearts! We are called to represent him here on earth. We are intercessors, we are gap fillers. As he is, so are we in this world. Kings and priests unto God. Shalom
Y’all, this is a news flash about communication from the front lines of the med world. It is taken from an internet conference titled “HEALING FROM GMOs and Roundup” by Dr. Jeffrey M. Smith and I am quoting Dr. Zach Bush who is a trained researcher and former chemo cancer specialist. After getting sick himself, he started the quest for a new answer to chronic disease. He now says that he believes there is “No such thing as disease: only a lack of health in tissues”.
Dr. Bush is convinced that nothing is ‘wrong’ with the body when it comes to chronic disease: just a breakdown in communication between cells. He claims that it is not a genetic defect, per se, (aka the American Cancer Society’s definition) that causes cancer, but rather cellular isolation. He says “You have to have one cell that is isolated and alone for a long time before it turns into a cancer cell… Isolate someone from their neighbor. How do they act? Desperate. Same thing at cell level. A cancer cell wants to live but it doesn’t recognize that life is like a seventy trillion cell organism anymore. It just thinks that IT is life. It can’t see or hear any other life around it. It says ‘oh no! I have to preserve life and I can’t fix myself if I am injured so the only option then is to proliferate faster.’ And that becomes a tumor.”
His research focuses on the ways to restore communication between cells so as to get them working together again. He says that the question ‘Why am I here?’ is our most “desperate question” and the answer is that we are “lacking that communication”. He is finding that when you restore the microbiome of the body’s communication, it resets the ability to communicate who we are to others again. He says “we stop being tumors”.
He also has observed in his patients that as their body starts talking to itself again, their self identity starts to emerge, too. He opines that this must be true as a society, too, as we act out our inner world. He says “We are seeing human behavior on the macro level mimicking what’s been happening for the last 15 years in our guts.” And goes on to point out the “aligning of destruction (anti-life practices) between our farming and our Pharma”.
Perhaps we might ought to go back and realize that the Command “Thou shalt not kill” might have been so that we would not destroy ourselves in the process of isolating ourselves – either by anti-life practices or walls or products – from reality around us. Killing may not only be at the point of a gun or an abortionist’s knife, and there may be no such thing as something or someone ‘other’ than me. Life for one may well be life for all, and communication (connection) may well be the entire basis of it.
Laurita thank you for sharing the interesting information.
Sounds a lot like some form of spiritualistic or new age theology.
What we think and act upon is what ailments our body will reveal. E.g. when we keep treading on people through life we will develop some foot or leg deficiency. When we keep seeing the wrong others do we will develop some sight deficiency etc.
Not saying this is the view the researcher has but it implies the same similarities.
Which may all be somehow true and relevant, as even Paul explained how much more effort is done for certain body parts than others.
So should more effort most probably be put into influencing the ways or perceptionsq of individuals disrupting the harmony within a community.
But can they be cured? Can the cured or restored imbalance be achieved without influencing the created and intended balance… I am still trying to figure this out.
I have witnessed both sides of this reality. Children removed from broken homes at very young ages can learn and adapt the life of their guardians or even fall back into the lifestyle of the broken world taken from for no specific reason.
Or the story of the identical twins who both used the same excuse. What do you think I am like this becuase of my parents. One the owner of a self built empire the other a drunk and beggar as the parents were. Are the differences because of views and personal choices (as often argued) or because of required balance for the greater picture. We will never know. What is observed is that what we are content with will most likely be what we experience from life…
Today we restore, tomorrow we experience similar or worse problems to restore the balance. Yeshau self taught focus on today and its concerns as tomorrow has its own.
Yet he never taught address the wrongs of yesterday to create a better today or more prosperous tomorrow…
I do not know if such views were ever part of Hebraic teachings, although they are implied by the questions asked by the desciples. What did father do wrong… for the blind man to be blind or crippled not to walk…
No the forfather sins have no relevance the conditions are there so that the power of God can be revealed… Yet not justified why this was necesarry. We can assume it was for non believers to believe. Then the question why was the unbelief there… the blind leading the blind. Or the one eyed is king in the land of the blind…
Or think of Nazareths death. Why did he take so long to respond…
I do not read a restoration requirement of getting forgiven for yesterdays sins as part of the NT teachings as they all refer to dealing with the now and here and to continue with this till we receive the reward…
Paul even said teach others not to do the sin. He did not teach to reprimand and get forgiveness. He taught stop and start a new.
Isaiah taught repent and cast away. Not repent and seek restoration.
The three day journey to rebirth. Death. Burial. New life.
Maybe it is because the healing is only there when the change is introduced or manifested. Not when the imbalances are restored.
Maybe this is what I should read as the solution of restoring communication rather than dealing with the imbalance or harm brought about through the lack of communication. Forget the past it cannot be restored… Take up the cross and follow me. Not lay down your life to follow…
Yes, we all desire a justifiable and righteous fairness. But then we seem to forget that righteousness saves or brings about restoration and not writing off so that forgiveness is manifested. As Skip has highlighted in the past that restoration is about change in generational approaches and not revisiting the sins of the fathers…
For us the choice is sin no more and introduce or live out the desired change. How the next person responds has nothing to do with our walk in faith.
The time may not yet be the time of rebirth…
Again an illusion that we achieve rebirth when all we do is die off more sin everyday to create or introduce the begining of a new age…
Just some personal weird reflection on scriptural records…
Well, they may be personal, but not weird or “new age”. We are told to overcome evil with good. That’s our option(s). Restoring the years the locust consumed, is Gods work, I have today to consider. Here’s something you might consider, biblical principles are not just a spiritual consideration. What Laurita shared, works, whether it’s emotional, spiritual or physical. They are principles of creation, set in place by God from the beginning. Unity, or the inherent reliance upon others, is the same in business as it is in farming. If true unity is achieved, prosperity follows, if not, destruction ensues. It’s the same with the physical body. We’re not required to change our past and the harm we’ve caused, we’re asked to repent. (turn around and act differently) the world system refuses to release you from your past, (do you think there’s an agenda there?) but it’s self destructive. Yeshua said, blessed are the overcomers. Live there!
Thank you for the positive reminder Robert… unity is in oneness of mind and action. Got a lot of repentence to do on becoming one in a Godly cause…