Silence Like Zechariah

Today at church we read Luke 1, the story about the birth of john the Baptist. The pastor started by telling us the story about the encounter of Zechariah and the Angle Gabriel. We read the Gabriel comes to Zachariah to tell him good news- the birth of his future son. Zechariah questions this information because he and his wife are not as young as they once were and wonder if this is possible. Because of this Gabriel tells Zechariah that he will not be able to talk until his son John is born.

9 months is a long time to listen and reflect over what others are saying. Just think- it took 9 months for Zechariah to understand and reflect the power of what God was telling him. Just think how much longer it might take for us to understand what god is telling us.

The pastor used an example of how hard it is to find natural silence in our world today. In 1968 a research study was conducted to see how long it would take to get 60 mins of natural silence. It took them about 12 hours (maybe a bit more or less). BUT what was shocking to me was that they did this study again in 2001 and it took these researchers 3 months - 2000 hours to get 60 mins of natural silence....wow.....what does that say about us.....are we uncomfortable with silence..... and if so how do we become comfortable and create space for silence in our lives?