For thousands of years, spiritual people have known the value of communing with God in the Silence. In this piece, I would like to give you some ideas about how to do this; how to commune with God in the ‘deep silence’.

Jesus said this in Matthew 6:6 (NASB):

Now, I fully realise that this was said in the context of not being all ‘showing-off’ in our faith, as if for the approval of others, but instead to keep our prayer and communion with God between Him and ourselves. But I believe there are also a couple of deeper truths in this passage that are useful in our present context. You see, I believe that, while on the surface, Jesus talks about your ‘inner room’ as if it’s a room in your house where you won’t be disturbed, He also talks about praying to your Father ‘…who is in secret’. I think that that right there is the key – it’s a private place, a Secret Place if you will. A Secret Place within your spirit (your ‘inner room’ being just that: a room ‘inside you’), that only you and God know. In the King James Version, the words the translators use are ‘…enter into thy closet’ (Mt 6:6 (KJV)). I like that. It’s as if it’s a tiny room where there is space only for two – you and God – and no-one else. It’s a place where only you and God are; where indeed no-one else will even fit in (in both senses of the term); where nobody else can get to but you and Him, no matter what is going on around you. This is the deepest place of communion with God; the place where it’s just you and Him*. Is it any wonder, then, that Jesus says that your Father ‘…will reward you’; what greater reward can there be but the Presence of God Himself?

Some people have written on the subjects of the ‘Discipline of Silence’ and the ‘Discipline of Solitude’. I won’t go into detail on these; you can easily Google the terms yourself and get a wide range of differing ideas and viewpoints on them. My post is kind-of related to those Disciplines, in that (that is, if you are into Spiritual Disciplines; I personally am not) these Disciplines may be able to help you on the road to practising accessing your ‘Secret Place’. Different paths for different people; it will work for some, not for others. Only you will know which way is best for you. But it is not the same thing as either the Discipline of Silence or that of Solitude. It’s not just being quiet before God, nor about silencing our thoughts, nor is it about being away from others, although as I said these disciplines all have their own value and can help you to access your Secret Place.

I will let you know how I personally do it. I find that I can easily find the inner Silence when there is literal silence – the absence of sound or noise – around me. If you like, the silence around me is a ‘picture’ of, or a ‘parable’ about, the Silence within. And once I am in the habit of finding that Silence in those circumstances, I find I can ‘touch base’ with the Silence in even the shortest silences. Moving on from this, I find I can also discover what I call the ‘underlying silence’ under all the noise of the day and/or the circumstances. I realise that this may be because of me having Asperger’s Syndrome, in which I find that my senses are constantly overloaded by visual, auditory and other sensory stimuli, and because of this I have had to learn to ‘tune’ out’, to some extent, as much extraneous ‘noise’ as possible in order to even be able to think straight. Even as I am writing this, someone has the television on in the background and I am having to tune that out too, because one of my Aspergic ‘gifts’ is the ability to concentrate on, or listen to, something in the background, at the same time as concentrating on my main task. It can become quite distracting, to be honest.

But anyway, let me try to explain it by describing the background levels that I perceive, in order to help you try to get a handle on the idea of the ‘underlying silence’; the ‘Deep Silence’, using an everyday example.

When I arrive home from work, and switch off the car engine, I open the door and just listen to the silence. I am most fortunate in living on a quiet road in a quiet part of town, and when I open my car door after switching off, the silence is quite profound. That’s easy; but even then, I am in the habit of ‘listening’ to the silence, and consciously having the feeling of ‘touching my feet down’ on it.

Then I unlock my front door, go in, and close the door behind me. There will be sounds, maybe the TV will be on, maybe someone might be listening to music or my daughter playing the piano. Or maybe, if my son is up to stay for a couple of days, he might be cooking or talking. But because I have already ‘heard’ the silence, I know that, beneath the noises, quiet or loud though they may be, the silence is still there and my feet are still planted on it – because I have made myself aware of it.

Or if I am at an airshow or even out flying myself. Sure, there is activity, noise, concentration and there are things to be done. But I am aware that underneath everything is the silence. Even if the noise has not been taken away, filtered out, or whatever, still I am aware that it is there – the underlying silence that is the background for all the layers of sound and distraction that we or our surroundings cover it with.

Or if I am at work and everyone wants everything done more urgently than everything else, again, I am aware of the deep underlying silence that lies behind everything, after everything else has been filtered out. It’s still there, even if I can’t actually hear it. And I therefore find that I can touch or access that silence even if everything around is havoc, as it so often is.

Do you see the progression here? I start by listening to ‘actual’, real silence: the absence of sounds. While doing that, I become more aware of the deep, inner Silence where God dwells. Then, as things become more distracting, I maintain an awareness of that underlying silence, that makes me aware of the inner Silence. It is still there, even despite the noise. Because I have experienced it when it’s ‘easier’, I can then also learn how to do this in other circumstances because I already know it’s there. And, with practice, I can be aware of the inner Silence in this manner irrespective of what goes on around me. I don’t mean I am constantly thinking about God, silence or things like that. What I mean is that, having experienced the Silence, I am aware that it is there, ‘on tap’, whenever I want to access it because it really is. It would have been there even had I not known how to access it, although it wouldn’t have been of much use to me. But because I am aware of it, I can tap into it any time I like.

This is the place where we can touch right down onto the bedrock of our faith; to plant our feet firmly on the solidity that is God, and from there all else just falls into place. Once our feet are placed on Him, the shocks and strains of life don’t have anywhere near the devastating effects that they would normally have, because we are grounded in Him.

Silence, Peace and Rest

In some ways, this inner Silence is also linked to the ‘peace that transcends understanding’ (Phil 4:7) and the ‘Sabbath rest of God’ (Heb 4:9-10) because it forms one of three spiritual ‘legs’, as it were, of Silence, Peace and Rest.

Silence, in that in the silence sits the waiting, welcoming Presence of God.

Peace, in that the supernatural Peace that transcends not only our understanding but also our circumstances gives us a real confidence that God has everything in hand, no matter how bad it might seem – and that death is no longer the end.

Rest, in that we have a Sabbath rest from our works in the same way that God rested from His labours – in that He simply let things be as they are, and we too also no longer need to work to ‘obtain’ or ‘earn’ our favour in God’s eyes, but that He accepts us, likes us and loves us just as we are.

Because of these three factors, we are welcome in that Secret Place. We can come directly into the Presence of God with neither hindrance nor fear (1Jn 4:18). Silence is just the way in which I have become aware of it; for you, it may be different – or it may not. That’s up to you to find out. But be assured, that inner, underlying Silence is indeed present; you do have a ‘Secret Place’ which you can access by climbing your secret staircase into that place where God waits for you, and is in fact there all the time.

I’m not saying you have to have a ‘Quiet Time’. Indeed, the Secret Place is not the same thing as the Quiet Time, although you can of course access the Secret Place during your Quiet Time, if you happen to practise that Spiritual Discipline (and I talk more about this in this article). But you can just as easily access the Secret Place in the hectic hassle of everyday life. In fact, it’s deeper than the ‘Quiet Time’ because, although in the Quiet Time you do indeed ‘charge your spiritual batteries’ and commune with God, there is a definite demarcation between the Quiet Time and the outside world. You step out of your Quiet Time and go into the world. With the inner Silence, however, you essentially carry your Quiet Time, if you like, around with you wherever you are and whenever it is. Your communing with God depends not on a set time and place, but more on an ongoing habit or mindset. Some have called it ‘Practising the Presence of God’, and this does sound like another way of looking at it, although I have not studied the idea in any great depth because so much of it appears to involve formulas and stuff like that. For me, the practice of the Inner Silence is far more personal, far more intimate than anything reached by a set of formulas or rituals. But it might work for you, of course; just because things like that don’t work for me doesn’t by any means infer that it won’t work for anyone.

If you live somewhere where it’s never quiet, can I recommend maybe finding the silence when you wake up at 3am in order to go to the toilet. Savour the silence when you get back into bed. Be conscious of it – the silence that lies underneath everything else. If you can’t do that at that time in the morning, maybe try out in the mountains or the moors, or on a secluded beach at dusk – or preferably at dawn; most people still seem to think it’s clever to stay up late, so the morning is usually quieter. Some of the most silent places are places like up in the Yorkshire Dales, or I can also specifically recommend Wasdale Head in the Lake District. In practice, though, you will find that you don’t usually need to go too far from civilisation to find somewhere silent.

Or maybe you might prefer the silence of the forest. Granted, in a forest, the wind in the trees virtually never stops making a sound of some sort, but it can still be good because the sounds of nature are easier to filter out as they make less demands on you, and can even in some cases be part of the silence. The silence itself is buried far less by the sounds of nature than it is by the sounds of civilisation.

However you find your inner Silence, the next step is to generate the habit of consciously resting on the Silence whenever you can. Pause and wait before you open your car door after switching off the engine. As you lay your head on your pillow last thing at night, be conscious of the inner silence just before you wander off into your dreamland. When you wake in the morning, before your ‘To Do’ list comes crowding in, savour that deep inner silence. Look for times during the day when there is a pause in your routine. Maybe you’re waiting at traffic lights in your car. Maybe you’re in the lunch queue at school. Any time when your mind can be diverted from what you’re doing is a good time. An example of what would not be a good time to be diverted is maybe when you are landing an aeroplane or negotiating a complex series of lane changes on a busy motorway junction. God doesn’t mind that you’re concentrating on what you’re doing! But in the same way as you might, sometimes even subconsciously, reach across the car and touch the hand of a loved one, or catch their eye across a crowded room and give them a wink, or a meaningful look of support or something; that’s what the Secret Place sometimes looks like. You find that  almost unconsciously – because it is habitual and comes naturally – you find yourself reaching in to the Inner Silence and communing there with your Heavenly Father – Who, as Jesus said, ‘rewards’ you – with His Presence.

In fact, this can also be seen as a definite form of prayer, because you are communing with God; being intimate with Him. Even if only for a couple of seconds, you are acknowledging His presence and going into that place where it’s just you and Him. And, to me, that few seconds is far more precious than many hours of just talking out loud to a God Whom you are not sure is listening…

So, although that might all sound a bit mystical and strange, please let me encourage you to find, in your own way, your own Inner Silence – or whatever it looks like to you. It’s well worth the effort. I’d also be interested in any comments that my readers make about their own experiences in this field.

May God bless you as you seek Him in this way.

I have written a piece touching on this subject before; you might want to read this previous article in order to ‘flesh out’ these ideas presented here with some more examples and thoughts, along with a couple of songs you might find helpful.

*I also believe that this is what Don Francisco means in his song, ‘Come Away‘, where he sings of the ‘…place where the thief has no key’.

I think it’s fair to say that God knows everything. He knows how everything is put together, how it all works, how it all began and how it all ends. And yet, in the midst of all that wonder, He chooses to let us ‘in’ on His secrets.

Now, everyone loves a secret that they are privy to. You’ll remember the delicious feeling, when we were kids, of being ‘in the know’; maybe being part of a secret club or ‘gang’ (not a ‘gang’ in its modern sense!); a group of kids who all identified with each other and who were all ‘in’. Great fun, wasn’t it? 😀

And I think that this is a precursor to knowing the secrets of God. That same desire to ‘know stuff’, which manifests itself differently in different people. For some it might be a desire to indulge in gossip about others’ private lives; for others it’s a desire to work things out in great detail; for still others it may be something else entirely. So I do believe it’s part of every human’s makeup in one form or another.

But for me there is no more fascinating quest than that of the pursuit of the secret things of God. To see in increasing measure what His purpose is; to see His attitudes; to know His love; to know many, many other things, maybe not even necessarily things directly about Him, that I can’t even begin to describe. Even the beginning of the knowledge of the answers to the deep questions of life is to be found in this quest.

As a medical research scientist, many years ago, I discovered how many things worked in a medical sense. That’s what we did. We were finding out these previously unknown things – secrets, if you will – that, up until we had made the discovery, nobody knew about.

And yet that’s nothing compared with knowing God and knowing about His ways. Consider also, there are Life’s Big Questions too, which I have touched on previously – why do bad things happen; why does God allow suffering and death – yes, I have those questions too.

So in this piece, then, I will attempt to explore something of what this ‘The Secret of the Lord’ is all about. The Psalmist said, “The secret of the Lord [is] with them that fear Him; And He will shew [archaic: show – Ed] them His covenant” – Ps 25:14 (KJV) – and that’s what we’re going to be looking at today.

But first, let’s just deal with that word ‘Fear’, shall we? The secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him? As I have said in a previous article, the word ‘Fear’, when seen in the Bible in the context of the ‘Fear of God’, does not mean what people in this day and age understand as ‘fear’. The word ‘fear’ has been retained in modern translations, despite its archaic use (and hence my use of the King James Version quotations to illustrate this), but it meant a different thing then from what it does now. The cynic in me says that this has been done for control purposes, but then that’s just my opinion. I’m not going to go into more detail here, but if you would like some more background on the common misuse of this word in the Bible, please take a look at this article. Suffice it to say for now that it’s a very rich word with connotations far exceeding simple ‘terror’; that the word can mean concepts more like ‘respect’, ‘awe’ or even ‘worship’ too, and given that perfect Love has no room for ‘fear’ as we understand the meaning of the word today, we would expect that the context is less to do with terror than it has to do with love. So, when we talk about people who ‘fear’ the Lord, we are talking about those who love Him, who worship Him, and who think He’s just pretty amazing. That’s what we’re talking about here.

So, to paraphrase Ps 25:14, ‘The secret of the Lord is with those who think He’s amazing’. Ok? But I am going to carry on using the word ‘fear’ in this article because it is the form of the Scripture passage that most believers will be familiar with. Just remember what the word really means, right?! 🙂

So, then, using our knowledge of Hebrew parallelism, we can at least see that the two concepts in Ps 25:14 are linked, in that to those who fear the Lord and know His secrets, He will show His covenant. In other words, the very idea of God showing His secrets to those who fear Him means that He makes His covenant – the ways in which He has promised to relate to us – known to us in increasing measure. And while that’s absolutely wonderful, there’s a lot more that He makes known to us as well.

And this is to be expected. God’s dealings with His faithful have always involved Him telling us stuff that we wouldn’t previously have known. Even as far back as Genesis, God said, “Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do?” (Gen 18:17). As St. Paul wrote, “…The natural man [that is, one not walking in the Spirit] does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God. For they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned. The spiritual man judges all things, but he himself is not subject to anyone’s judgment. “For who has known the mind of the Lord, so as to instruct Him?” But we have the mind of Christ” – (1Cor2:14-16) If we are living a supernatural life, then it is to be expected that God will reveal new and surprising things to us through His Spirit; things we were not expecting, things we did not ask for, and certainly things that we didn’t know before and would have no way of knowing without the Spirit of God showing us these things.

Linked with this is the idea that, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding” – (Prov 9:10). Do you see the connection there; the common root? If we begin by approaching the Lord in ‘fear’ – worship, adoration, awe and just generally being gobsmacked – then we begin and continue our walk along the path to wisdom, which is part of the ‘Secret of the Lord’. If you’ve been a believer for some time, then you will know what I am talking about. You will be able to point to various things that God has shown you over the years that you couldn’t have known yourself; things He has shared with you, in terms of both wisdom and knowledge. If you’ve not been walking with Jesus all that long, then I rejoice in saying that you have all this to look forward to!

Much of the wisdom I have been able to share which I have learned in my grief journey since losing my wife to cancer nineteen months ago, this wisdom I have been taught in the silences of simply sitting at Jesus’s feet; in the agonies of grief; in deep, healing worship; and in the times where I have felt His tangible Presence like a warm cloak of divine Love wrapped around my shoulders. And some of this knowledge is ‘secret’ because it relates only to me; it’s personal for my circumstances – these are ‘my secrets’, if you will. But other things have been revealed that I have indeed shared. In particular, the profound realisation that death is not the end is extremely important, and had to be shared with my readers here.

He revealeth the deep and secret things: he knoweth what is in the darkness, and the light dwelleth with him – Dan 2:22 (KJV)

He reveals deep and hidden things; he knows what lies in darkness, and light dwells with him. – Dan 2:22 (NIV)

‘Deep and secret things’. That sounds amazing, doesn’t it? And it is. We are privy to an immense storehouse of God’s wisdom and knowledge that He is willing to pass on to us, albeit in chunks that we can cope with. The ancient Hebrew King, David, wrote this: “Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain” – (Psalm 139:6). Jesus Himself said several times that even once He’d gone, not only would He not leave us ‘as orphans’ (Jn 14:18), and that He would come to us and that He would send us His Spirit “…to be with you for ever” (Jn 14:16)

And He also said that, “I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. He will glorify me because it is from me that he will receive what he will make known to you. All that belongs to the Father is mine. That is why I said the Spirit will receive from me what he will make known to you.” – (Jn 16:12-15)

I also love the bit in Matthew 11:25-27 where Jesus said, “I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children [in the context, He was referring to His disciples here – Ed]. Yes, Father, for this is what you were pleased to do. All things have been committed to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him”.

As you’ve probably gathered by now, the key to all this is Jesus. Knowing Jesus is foundational. In order to sit at His feet and learn from Him, you need to come to Him. Jesus said, “Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.” – (John 17:3). If you like, the wisdom and knowledge of the ways of God, including the ‘Secret of the Lord’, is part of the ‘Eternal Life’ package; the life of the age to come being projected into the here and now. Parallel to this idea, Proverbs 8:35 says, “For he who finds me [wisdom] finds life, and obtains favour from the Lord” – Prov 8:35 (NASB)

As I mentioned above, some parts of the Secrets of the Lord can be shared; some cannot. Some we can learn from each other; from those to whom God has revealed things. Some things are too far ingrained in the route by which we learned them such that they are not communicatable because the way we learned them is too deep to be expressed. But some things are in any case altogether too sacred to share, and indeed can be potentially harmful to share with people who do not have the maturity to hear those things (cf. Heb 5:11-14)*. Some of the stuff I get from God, I know full well would cause one helluva stir if I were to let it out into the public domain. And so, the wisdom that I receive from the Lord – which I always want to have at the same time as the knowledge I receive – is that which says what is good to share, and what is not. St. Paul, somewhat modestly, declared (in the third person) that he had received visions from God that he was not permitted to share. I love the passage where he writes about this:

“Although there is nothing to be gained, I will go on to visions and revelations from the Lord. I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven. Whether it was in the body or out of the body I do not know—God knows. And I know that this man—whether in the body or apart from the body I do not know, but God knows— was caught up to paradise and heard inexpressible things, things that no one is permitted to tell“.  – (2Cor12:1-4, emphasis mine)

Some of my readers will know what this is like. How many times have you had dreams where God has shared things with you that you cannot even express? I remember once (if ‘remember’ is the right word) having a dream about the things of God. I could not remember a thing about it when I woke up except that I knew that something really deep had happened. The fruits of that dream are with me to this day. I’m not talking about the ordinary kind of forgetting of dreams that always happens; I distinctly remember waking up fully from the dream that had just finished, knowing that something amazing had happened to me, but I didn’t know what it was. It seems that, on occasion, God even keeps secrets from us about His dealings with us! And talking of dreams, my late wife Fiona had a similar occurrence in her sleep in her early twenties, which was incredible but which is not my story to share.

Added to that, a few months before she died, Fiona was given a lucid vision of what Heaven was going to be like for her. And she kept that a secret from me until only a couple of weeks before her passing, because she knew that her telling me would greatly upset me, because then all my hope of not losing her would be lost. Now that’s wisdom! She was the most wise person I ever met, was my Fiona! 🙂

Another idea along these lines is that sometimes someone isn’t ready for new knowledge just yet. Let me use the example of an article I read the other day, where the writer was working through some concepts of Scripture that were bothering them. This person had some excellent ideas, some that were not so good, and also expressed some concepts that I left behind years ago. But rather than wade in and point out ‘errors’ based on my ‘knowledge’ (which I appreciate is sketchy at best!), I recognised that the writer was at a point in their own walk that was a huge step forward from where they were previously, and for them, that was amazing. And so I kept my trap shut and didn’t say anything. I sometimes think that wisdom is knowing how and when to use the knowledge that we have been given!

I also read a comment, in reply to one of Christy Wood’s posts, where the commenter said this, “Here’s the thing: even as God does gently lead me into greater understanding, I cannot then turn around and push it down the throats of others. I have to allow God to be God, and do with them as he is doing with me. If I am a parent, I have to allow my adult children to learn their own lessons, make their own mistakes and choose their own flavor of relating to God“. We can use that illustration as part of the reason why God shares with us certain things, while not sharing others.

Sometimes, the stuff He shares with us is so historically magnificent that it would destabilise lives if we were to share it. “The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may follow all the words of this law“. – Deut (29:29) This is true insofar as the secret things of God were being progressively revealed to the Israelites in the desert under Moses, and later through the prophets, but were revealed in their fulness in Jesus Christ. Jesus is the fulfilment of that Law on our behalf. And so, ‘secret things’ were revealed, yes, but their true historical significance did not become apparent until Jesus Christ. They couldn’t, and indeed shouldn’t, have known what was to come, because the ramifications were so huge. In other words, God speaks His secrets to us at a level we are able to cope with, and not necessarily at a level that others could cope with. That’s pretty deep, I know.

You will probably be raring to go, to seek after the ‘Secret of the Lord’. Remember it’s not one thing, but a whole magnificent plan and destiny of which He reveals only a small part at a time, and the hugeness of which cannot be understood by mere mortals like us. But even so, having the plans of God revealed to us carries an immense sense of privilege, and an immense responsibility, to hold and use that knowledge with the wisdom that He also gives freely.

How do we start? It’s nothing heavy. The knowledge and wisdom of God is given freely to those who simply ask. Just ask Him, and then expect Him to point things out to you as you go about your everyday life, walking in the Spirit. It will happen. You may suddenly realise that for the past week, God has been speaking these secrets to you and, you haven’t realised. Don’t worry. He will bring things back to you. This is something that takes some getting used to, and it improves with practice. It’s a ‘learning curve’! Cut yourself some slack and just enjoy the experience.

Oh, and one more thing: remember it’s a ‘secret’. Don’t share stuff with others unless you are absolutely sure they can deal with it. Don’t share it boastfully or with ‘attitude’. Remember there will be those who do not, indeed simply cannot, understand. So, most of the time, keep these nuggets to yourself, let them nourish you and teach you in the ways of God. The fruits and the benefits for others will emerge in due course.

To quote J. C. Philpot, from August 1844:

“It is a secret, because it is only known to a few. It is a secret, because it is carried on in private between God and the soul. It is a secret, because never known until God the Spirit unfolds the mystery.” [1]

So, The Secret of the Lord is with those who fear Him. Enjoy this. Be fascinated by it, by your discoveries, by His revelations. Drink in the richness of His Creation, the depths of His wisdom, and the knowledge of His love, power, majesty and might.

Grace and Peace to you.

There is an interesting article that I read recently, which goes quite deeply into the ideas of sharing the ‘Secret of the Lord’ with others. “When the Lord knows that He can trust us with His secrets, He will reveal things to us which He cannot reveal to others”. Definitely worth a look. See reference [2] below.

[1] https://www.gracegems.org/Philpot/secret_of_the_lord.htm
Much of what Philpot says in that sermon is stuff I don’t agree with, and it reflects the prevalent thinking of the period. But some of it is real gold. I leave it to the reader to sift it for the nuggets 🙂

[2] From ‘Love Notes’, by Mary Love Eyster: http://www.iprayprayer.com/secret-lord-fear-psalm-2514-keeping-gods-secrets/

*”We have much to say about this [theological idea], but it is hard to make it clear to you because you no longer try to understand. In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God’s word all over again. You need milk, not solid food! Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil” – Heb 5:11-14