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Quiet and Silence to Know God
Episode #757
6/6/2021
With Martha Kilpatrick and hosted by John Enslow
I didn’t come with peace in heart. I came with chaos, activity, hysteria, confusion, loudness.
Joan:
Psalm 65:1 AMPC
To You belongs silence (the submissive wonder of reverence which bursts forth into praise) and praise is due and fitting to You, O God, in Zion; and to You shall the vow be performed.
John:
So, what I was saying is that you, Martha, introduced me to Peace. Capital P, peace. And I didn’t come with peace in heart. I came with chaos, activity, hysteria, confusion, loudness. There was a loudness inside of me. Whether I was saying anything or not there was a loudness inside my being. And what you did was you came and you gave me a value for peace and for quiet and for waiting. And it’s not a value that this world appreciates or commends or treasures. And what I’ve learned is that I can accomplish more in silence than I ever can through activity. The Spirit of the sovereign Lord, I can connect with Him.
And so, what, how you did it was you first you gave me the opportunity to circumstantially have silence and stillness in my life. But that wasn’t the connection with the heart and the inside. I had to invite that in. I had to number one I had to first treasure it, I had to see that it had value because it looks like inactivity. It looks like futileness. It looks like wasting time. And what you did was, you said, “This is where all of life is gathered. It’s not in the activity, it’s in the waiting, it’s in the stillness, it’s in the silence.”
And so, you introduced me to the value of silence and stillness and quiet. And so, then when I invited that into my being now there is a union between the external circumstance of quiet and the internal peace of His Life. And they’re connected in me. And when I get into that, I don’t want to move, I don’t want to say anything, I don’t want to move, I don’t want to do anything…because there’s a union going on of that stillness and quiet. And it’s His presence. It is His presence. You’re right that’s exactly what it is. It’s the opportunity, it’s a door for His presence to come in. And it’s like it doesn’t matter if there’s any manifestation of His presence. It’s that moment of a touchdown of His presence, of His peace, of His stillness.
I think the reason why the Sovereign Touch and all that message came through is because it’s really where His sovereign hand is received because I stop. And in order to stop you have to say, “You’re God, You’re Lord, You’re Lord over all, You’re Lord over all circumstances.” If you don’t have that sovereign touch, you’re not going to receive that quiet and stillness. But that’s where you can come into that place and you can be like, “Oh, ok…You are sovereign.
Martha:
John, most people know that you were called into silence and solitude for two years; by yourself literally. Did that have a lot of effect on you?
John:
That’s where you introduced it to me. That’s exactly where you introduced it to me. And so really the Body facilitated that time for me. But that was something that God engaged me with and said, “Will you lay down your life and doings and will you come face to face with Me?” That’s also where I had to wrestle with His sovereign touch in my life and experience His sovereignty. That’s where that came from.
Martha:
I can think of it now after all these years and understand how much He desired your company with Him.
John:
Yeah.
Martha:
How much He had you singled out, chosen, and placed in order to satisfy Him.
John:
It was a satisfaction for Him.
Martha:
It was not just…your silence satisfies Him.
John:
He wanted me to shut up. Really, He did. He wanted me to shut up and listen. And that was impossible before I had that season.
Martha:
You were in a typical church…
John:
I was.
Martha:
…and world…
John:
Yeah.
Martha:
…of a lot going on.
John:
But even in the church I can look at…much of the church is about noise…
Martha:
Um hmm.
John:
…activity…
Martha:
And the more the better.
John:
Yeah. Unfortunately, it’s true.
Martha:
Silence is a lost art.
John:
That’s exactly it.
Martha:
It’s interesting to remember, too, I took you to my father’s church to hear sort of a play of all the different nuns.
John:
The mystic nuns.
Martha:
The mystic nuns. And this actress would dress in the garb of that particular nun’s world. Then she’d go behind the screen, become another person in a different accent.
John:
Um hmm.
Martha:
It was absolutely enthralling.
John:
The lights would go out and then she’d walk out and she’d be that person.
Martha:
She’d be in a different costume.
John:
She was Susan Westley. One of them was remember?
Martha:
Yes.
John:
And then there was Julian of Norwich, Teresa of Avila.
Martha:
Um hmm. So, we went out to dinner after that to Chinese food and you were kind of smitten because you were being called to the mystical life of silence. That’s what it is.
John:
Yeah, sure.
Martha:
The mystical life that the evangelical world of church doesn’t really know.
John:
You’re right.
Martha:
And He took me in to that mystic silent life because He didn’t give me anybody to talk to and anybody to talk to me. I was totally alone. And then I began to read Guyon in the mystics.
John:
Guyon was one of them, too.
Martha:
And you read Guyon.
John:
Um hmm.
Martha:
And then we would go, y’all may not know this part of our life but we would fly to Iowa. You would go to the monastery and I would go the convent.
John:
Dubuque, Iowa.
Martha:
We would fly in there and he would rent a car and go to a monastery, Brother John.
John:
Brother John (laughs)
Martha:
And I would go to a convent…
John:
Um hmm.
Martha:
…and talk to the nuns about their lives and watch their lives. So, we were definitely called in a unique way in several different directions. We did that for several years.
John:
Protenant little people that would go into this Catholic reality.
Martha:
Yeah. That relationship with the Lord is…puts you in Christ. That’s all.
John:
Right.
Martha:
No other voices, no other relationships, no other nothing but just you and Christ. And boy do we need that in this hour. But you marvelously put it that sovereignty is the foundation.
John:
When you stop activity and you stop noise all of a sudden you have to face to face with the Lord who is over all of the circumstances that were creating the chaos.
Martha:
Right!
John:
So just when you said you pray and then the rain stopped and then I was just sitting there waiting and I was like, “Oh, there it is.” oooh
Martha:
Well and I watch you in writing. That’s what you do. You sit for hours.
John:
Um hmm.
John:
And you are listening and you’re going over your manuscript and you’re just quiet as a mouse.
John:
And you know me. You know how I came.
Martha:
Um hmm.
John:
You know that’s not who came.
Martha:
Transformation for sure. Now you’re an expert at it and here we’re all trying to get you to teach us.
John:
Well, you know something? It was to snuff out that raging flame of chaos and hysteria and noise from inside you. It’s a work of the Spirit.
Martha:
It takes a lot of the power of the Spirit for you to endure it. You endured it and it was not easy. One of your close friends said, “I wish I had two years.” I wanted to say, “No you don’t.”
John:
No you don’t.
Martha:
It’s not easy.
John:
No, it was awful.
Martha:
It was dying.
John:
I laid on the floor and cried a lot…
Martha:
Um hmm.
John:
…because it was…I was dying. I was dying to something that I had put a lot of faith in. I had a lot of faith in my hysterics.
Martha:
And your community.
John:
Yeah.
Martha:
Your group was a busy group.
John:
Busy, yeah.
Martha:
Very active.
John:
But I was addicted like the anxiety book that I just finished. You read it and you said it’s good so we’re there. We’re going to do it.
Martha:
It’s fabulous.
John:
I’ve got to get a cover but then I’m going to start working on it immediately.
Martha:
John, it’s an answer.
John:
But I say in that about the addiction to anxiety that you become…it becomes a drug and you have to. You literally will maintain it by making chaos so that it keeps it going because you believe in it and that it’s the only thing that gets things done.
Martha:
Um hmm.
John:
I mean I’m an expert on that one, because that’s exactly what I did. I kept that hysterics going and that noise.
Martha:
That can be a hiding place from reality.
John:
Yeah.
Martha:
All that businesses. I know that one.
John:
So anyway I have extreme value in quiet and solace and silence and solitude and it’s become my friend.
Martha:
I wish I had the words to say continuous noise and talk and talk and talk just shreds you. It takes all your energy.
John:
Um hmm.
Martha:
And robs you of your own…
John:
Life.
Martha:
…life, yeah.
John:
And person.
Martha:
Um hmm.
John:
Somehow it steals your person, your very person.
Martha:
And you have to protect yourself when you learn that that’s the value. And I recommend this. For years I had several long months that I didn’t do it but Monday was my day to be absolutely alone; no phone call. My sister would say, “I didn’t call you yesterday on Monday.” I had to train people that Monday I was not available. I’m doing that now on Wednesday’s. But to take one day of absolute solitude, absolute quiet; no phone, no computer-maybe if you’re writing. But that is so healing. And I believe it’s why…I could so this on Sundays just as easily. We have tried to make our Sundays in this vein.
Even if there’s two it lessens the quality of the alone time. You have to be absolutely alone to have all that pours into you from that. And it’s rest and no activity, no noise, no nothing. And I believe it’s extremely healing to your body, soul, and spirit.
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