At the beginning of this year, I engaged in an extended time of complete fasting for spiritual growth, seeking the Lord's direction for The Crossroads, praying for an awakening in our nation, and asking God to raise up an army of church planters to reach people with the gospel. During that same period of time, I also was on complete vocal rest (That means I couldn't talk at all!) for two and a half weeks. Silence is a historic Christian discipline, and it is something that the Bible encourages us to do in numerous places. For instance, Habakkuk 2:20 says, "The Lord is in his holy temple; let the whole earth be silent in his presence." Thus, there certainly can be legitimate spiritual reasons for engaging in times of silence before God, whether that is for a brief time daily (a quiet time), a quiet walk with the Lord in a peaceful place (throughout Jesus's ministry, he would often withdraw to a quiet or lonely place to be alone with the Father), or a more extended period of silence.
So, while there are great spiritual reasons to engage in the discipline of silence, my reason for going on vocal rest was much more practical. Through years of speaking to a large group of people at least weekly as well as loving to sing loudly during worship, and using poor vocal technique, I had developed nodules on my vocal cords. You can google them if you want a detailed explanation, but basically it's like having callouses on your vocal cords. The result is always sounding hoarse and having a minor sore throat after speaking for a long time. The first remedy for them is simply not talking for a period of two to three weeks with the hope that they will heal during that time. So, that's what I did.
Now, I wasn't totally without any means of communication during that time. I carried around a small whiteboard and dry erase marker with me (when I remembered them) that I could use to write messages. I also used a weird version of charades and a tiny bit of sign language. One of the things we learned is that LaRissa is horrible at charades! I could send text messages, and I also found a couple of different tools on my tablet and phone that would convert text to speech. None of these solutions were great, though, and made communication slow, cumbersome, and ineffective. So, mostly, I was just quiet.
Although I was not doing this vocal rest as a spiritual discipline, keep in mind that it overlapped with an intentional extended period of fasting and seeking the Lord. And God did use the silence in correlation with the fasting to graciously reveal himself to me. Being silent allowed me to be more attentive to the gentle whisper of the Holy Spirit and to be more focused on meditating on Scripture and spending time in prayer. The biggest "Aha!" moment came for me when I realized that not talking was harder than not eating. I mean way harder!
Think about that with me for a moment. Eating is far more important in the long term for life and my physical well-being. At some point, you cannot go on without eating. Nutrients are necessary for life. On the flip side, speaking is not necessary at all for life. There are people who cannot speak, and yet manage to have a long and fulfilling life. I know plenty of people who are extremely introverted who are perfectly content to go for hours on end without saying a word. But that's not me! While not eating involved some difficulty, not talking was incredibly difficult for me.
And that's how the Lord spoke to me. What if I (what if we all) had the same attitude toward the voice of the Lord and the word of God as I did about my own voice? What if I desired to hear the voice of the Lord more than I desired physical food? What if I looked forward to time in prayer and time in the word as much as I look forward to my next meal? What if I hungered and thirsted for hearing from Jesus as much as I do food and drink.
Thinking about that brought new light for me to a statement by Jesus. Jesus had been in the desert fasting for 40 days when the devil comes to tempt him, and the Bible specifically tells us that he was hungry (Mt. 4:2). So, the first temptation that the devil offers was for Jesus to turn a pile of stones into loaves of bread. It was a temptation to use his power to fulfill his own personal desires, to satisfy his physical hunger, to place his need ahead of the purposes and direction of the Holy Spirit and God the Father. Jesus's response is what the Holy Spirit illuminated to me: "It is written: Man must not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of God" (Mt. 4:4).
Jesus understood that physical food was not all that was necessary for the thriving of human life. While bread can sustain our physical bodies, bread cannot bring true life. Only the word of God, only hearing from the Lord, only listening to the voice of the Lord can ultimately bring life to us. So, for Jesus, the voice of the Lord was far more important than physical food. Jesus knew that he could not carry out his mission on earth apart from the presence, the direction, and the empowerment of the Father and listening to his voice at every moment.
So, my big takeaway was this desire and this prayer: "Father, I want to live my life hungering for your word, to hear your voice, to know your voice, and to follow your voice more than any other desire in my life. I want to hunger and thirst for righteousness. I want to look forward to hearing from you more than I look forward to eating a great meal." Maybe you would pray the same prayer today.
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