Our world is full of noise. There aren’t many places in our daily life without sound. At home, the air conditioning is cooling, the refrigerator is running, the TV is talking, and the kids are clamoring. Outside, the neighbor is mowing the lawn, cars are flying past, construction sounds are piercing, sirens are blaring, and airplanes are thundering overhead.

Surrounded by noise, it can feel bizarre and even scary when sound is absent. The Quiet Place movies are predicated on the idea that it’s hard and unnatural to be silent, even when our lives are on the line. We’re so accustomed to the sound storm that we feel the need to fill our lives with noise.

The Whisper

Amid all this noise, where is our God? He reveals himself to Elijah the prophet as a “gentle whisper” or a “thin silence” (1 Kings 19:12, NIV) depending on your translation. Cutting through the chaos and the endless noise that overwhelms the senses, God is a low and gentle whisper. He is the still, small voice. It is his voice that we need. 

That’s why spending time in nature is life-giving for so many people, myself included! We get to retreat from the noise. We can experience the gentle whisper and the thin silence of God. The quietude of nature reminds us who God is and how we should respond to him.

Creeks flow and applaud our Lord. Birds pluck the harps in their throats by singing praises to God in all circumstances. Trees dance in the wind of worship. Flowers bloom to hint at the Father’s beauty. Nature shows us how we should respond to God’s gentle whisper. His whisper calms us amid the flood of sound.

Sometimes the sensory barrage is crushing. I can feel overwhelmed when there’s too much noise and too many things going on. My mind starts to shut down, and I can’t focus on anything. If someone’s sitting by me, I can’t understand what they’re saying. In these moments, when it all becomes too much, I need to be reminded that God is a whisper. He is peace. He is serenity. And he fights for us while our only job is to be silent. 

The Weapon

After leaving Egypt, the Israelites find themselves stuck between an impassable sea and an unconquerable army. In Exodus 14, the Israelites are freaking out, and they ask Moses why he brought them out of Egypt just to die in the wilderness. 

But God was providing through their hopelessness!

Moses, on behalf of the Master, proclaims to the people: “Fear not, stand firm, and see the salvation of the LORD, which he will work for you today. For the Egyptians whom you see today, you shall never see again. The LORD will fight for you, and you have only to be silent” (Ex. 14:13–14). 

The Lord will fight for you, and you have only to be silent. Be still, and rest in God’s gentle whisper. He is one wielding the weapon. He is the one fighting for you.

I often find myself striving against my Creator. I’m like Jacob wrestling with God all night at the ford of the Jabbok (Gen. 32:22–31). I ask him why often. I echo the psalmists, enquiring, “How long?” I want to plead my case to the Lord just like Job did. Job said that if he could only appear before God, “I would lay my case before him and fill my mouth with arguments” (Job 23:4). Ironically, Job does appear before God, and he is at a loss for words. 

Instead of wrestling against God, he wants us to be still. How are we to know that he is God? It is not through writhing, even though that’s what we want to do. We are simply to “be still, and know that [he is] God” (Ps. 46:10). 

I’m sure the Israelites would have been confused by Moses’s declaration. How will silence help us defeat the Egyptians? Shouldn’t we be making war cries and intimidating them? Shouldn’t we be psyching ourselves up for battle with an epic Braveheart-style pep talk? How can we possibly win by being silent and still? 

The Israelites were facing a Red Sea moment, but God had a miraculous plan they could not have fathomed. “You can be still and silent,” God answers them, “because you are not going to fight the Egyptians! I will fight them. You are going to walk across this sea on dry ground, and I’ll take care of the Egyptians.” 

The greatest metaphorical Egyptian we face today is our battle against sin. It’s an unconquerable army that we are powerless to defeat. Yet the story with the Israelites does not end with them stuck between the army and the sea, and our story does not end with us stuck between sin and death.

The Work

What happens next is shocking. I’m so familiar with the story from Sunday School growing up that the radical nature of this event is diminished. God parts the sea and makes a way through it on dry ground! Think about how baffling this would have been. Imagine how much faith it would have taken to step between the walls of water!

Even while we are silent, God—our gentle whisper—is still working. He is holding the waters in a heap. He is keeping the Egyptians back. And he does the same with our greatest foe. 

In our battle against sin, our work is nowhere near enough. We are stuck, but God makes a way through the impossible!

Jesus Christ came to fight against sin, and he defeated it through the weapon of the cross. What role did we have? We were the ones who put Jesus up there. We had no power to fight against sin and its consequences. He fought and won—by dying.

Now, we can be with God in a personal relationship and rest in his gentle whisper. We have God’s Spirit living inside us, and he gives us peace and serenity from within. Whenever chaos encircles us, noise and busyness overwhelm our senses, and our souls are restlessly screaming, there is God and his whisper. He quiets our soul with his Spirit, he tenderly speaks to us and calls us by name, and he makes a way to peace through the tempest.

I still want to strive against him sometimes. I still get overwhelmed. I still have an uneasiness about life at times. But remembering we can rest in God’s gentle whisper while he fights on our behalf brings a supernatural peace that truly surpasses all understanding.

If you don’t know where God is, look in the quiet places. Block off time and every distraction as best you can, and search for him in the silence. You don’t have to say anything, listen to anything, or do anything. Just sit with him. Truly make it a quiet time. He’s there in the stillness.

A. W. Tozer reminds us, “There is no need to rush. Noise is the enemy of the soul; and in our noise-enriched culture, it may take some doing, but the result is well worth the effort” (Tozer 2009, 179). If noise is the enemy of our souls, then God fights it with his gentle whisper, and he encompasses you within it. You have only to be silent.