We all need significant times in our lives where we experience the peacefulness of complete and total silence. Quiet moments are where we can make a heartfelt exploration of our deepest questions and pose them before the Almighty God of the universe.
God is timeless, yet He pauses, draws near to our hearts, and listens to what we are truly saying when no one else is really listening.
Throughout history there has been a void in the heart of man that resounds with urgency. It expresses a deep yearning that is palpable and reflects an intense desperation that is the heart cry of the human soul that is separated from God.
With the tragic event in the Garden of Eden, when man turned away from God and lost his pure and unhindered communion with his Creator. Mankind has since been left with a spiritual vacuum and painful emptiness.
The Quiet Place within the heart of man, where he walked in the cool of the garden with God, became instead, a lonely place.
Every person who has ever lived has experienced the awareness of a profound inner thirst, deep within the heart. It is an intense spiritual need that can only truly be satisfied when a person has found the place where he can commune together with God in unhindered worship. The reality of this inner spiritual void exists within us regardless of our age, gender, or nationality.
We discover in life that no amount of money, fame, possessions or power can satisfy the longing within or fill the emptiness. History has proven that whatever man attempts to use to fill that void never brings permanent fulfillment or genuine inner peace. Instead, there is an acute dissatisfaction with what was thought to be the solution to fill the emptiness within. This results in an intense awareness of inner chaos, which can so often lead to many different types of addictions that people can use to anesthetize their inner pain and provide them with short term pleasure. One of Satan's most common strategies to enslave man is to create a counterfeit God. As we discussed, the inner void inside us is there because of the broken relationship that man had once enjoyed so freely with God in Garden of Eden. Satan's subtle lie is to get us to believe that our relationship with any form of addiction will bring a physical and spiritual pleasure that will mimic communion with God. This has been true since the beginning of man's life on earth.
In spite of all of the sentimental poetry, romantic novels, tender musical ballads, or passionate love stories depicted in movies, there is no earthly relational experience that can truly satisfy the innermost loneliness of the human heart.
We must understand that the deep loneliness that can consume us is a result of our soul being homesick for an intimate relationship with God. This concept is simple, yet profound and worth repeating.
Our deepest loneliness that can consume us is a result of our soul being homesick for the intimate relationship with God that we were originally created to enjoy continuously. Before the fall, the quiet place was the entire expanse known as the Garden of Eden. For at that time, wherever Man was, God was with him.
Our deepest need is to bask intimately in the fullness of God’s love. There is nothing apart from God that can truly fill the inner void, because it was created by God, for God, and only He can dwell there. For Adam and Eve, the Quiet place was experienced in the external beauty of the Garden of Eden, and in their continual communion with God.
Now that we are no longer able to go to the Garden of Eden to commune with God, we don't need to be in despair over this issue, because God has wondrously created the capacity for us as born again Christians to experience an internal Edenic Garden that will enable us to praise and worship him freely, while still being able to enjoy Spiritual communion with Him moment by moment.
Since the fall of Eden, the Quiet Place has now become an internal reality where we provide a holy place to commune with God alone. We must now set aside precious moments to be alone with God so that we might pour out our hearts, share our deepest requests, and worship him in a new and living way
The reality of this truth could fill a myriad of blogs. This one cannot explore the depths of such a vast topic. My hope is that it touches a parched tongue with a drop of water so you might seek the true Fountain from which Living Water can truly be found. (John 7:37-38)
My true passion in naming this blog 'The Quiet Place' is so that we can explore ways to reach deeply into that vast space that God created back in Eden that was made for our specific and intimate communion with only Him. That we will find joy in the journey there and peace as a result of dwelling in The Quiet Place with the One who made us!
