Prayer Opportunities with Chaplain Troy Ray

• Mondays  10:00 AM  Corporate Prayer
• Wednesdays  6:30 AM  "A Bamboo Nation" Student Prayer Gathering
• Thursdays  10:00 AM   Healing Prayers  -- If you have a healing need, please email Chaplain Ray at tray@salisburychristian.org

Heart To Heart June 2008

“Be still and know….”     Psalm 46:10

Over the past several months, the most difficult thing for me has been to trust the Lord in the midst of silence. So often we long for God to speak to us. It seems as though we need the assurance of His presence and purposes in our lives; therefore, we constantly crave God’s speaking.

I have discovered that God speaks through many venues. The written word is one of these venues. We trust that God is faithful to speak to us from His word. I love those moments when we read a verse for the twentieth time, and God speaks something new and fresh. He speaks through people and he speaks through His creation. God will also speak through circumstances, good and bad.

But how do we respond when His speaking seems “desert – like?” What do we do when our soul is thirsty for some reassuring taste from heaven? What happens when in the midst of silence, God silences us? How do we respond in our souls when our words before God are few if any?

These are testing moments- when silence is on both ends.

I trust that these are the times when God wants us to just sit before Him, even as Mary sat at the feet of Jesus. There is so very much noise in the world, in the church and in our hearts. I believe that the cry of the Father’s heart is for His children to trust the silence. A fire is birthed in our hearts as we simply sit before God and wait in His presence. He silences us at times because we can easily begin to trust in ourselves. Our trust must be in God alone, minus our human effort. Somehow we believe that our prayers, if prayed correctly and often will give us the “thing” for which we ache. This is a small form of idolatry. Sometimes, what the Father desires is that we engage with Him in the silence.

My journey in silence is teaching me to find sufficiency in God alone. At times it has been crushing to my soul as I simply lay before God with only my heart to offer. Slowly, I have found that the ambers of His love begin to glow anew in my spirit and the silence of trust gives rise to new stirrings in my heart.

Somehow, the mental daze created by the noise slowly diminishes and I find myself resting in God’s very heart. There abides not a better place.

Consider, my friend, choosing silence this summer; it may prove refreshing.

Pastor Troy Ray

SCS Chaplain

tray@salisburychristian.org