Now Let Us Go Into The Silence
Sometimes things so supernaturally click together coincidentally that you know that you are being taught something by God. I was looking at books and messages 24, 40, and over 91 years old that all came together on a certain day to tell me, "Now let us go into the Silence."
That phrase is associated with Unity, a nondualistic branch of Christianity with which Neville Goddard was associated. In all the hundreds of times I read or heard those words from Neville's lectures, I never really knew what he was talking about.
And like happened to Neville, I find myself at a point where I need to get rid of some hundreds of books I have accumulated over the years. I have my son posting some of the bigger lexicons and sets on Ebay, and in culling through the boxes for easy sells I stumbled upon Benny Hinn's The Anointing. I had never read it after inheriting it from my mother. I didn't remember why I had written Hinn off my list of actual Christians, so I opened the book to see whether I should sell it or trash it.
Providentially, the book opened to page 51, The Blessing of Silence. The Elijah in Hinn's early life was Kathryn Kuhlman, and he shares how he learned from her to enter silence. By silence she and he mean SHUT UP: for "He comes in when you're quiet." Okay, back to the shelf for the time being.
What had I rejected Hinn for? Arrogance? Greed? Whacko theology? Well, I knew he must be on YouTube.com, so I searched "Bennie Hinn" on YouTube (like I said, I hadn't thought of him for a long time). The first suggestion to come up was "Benny Hinn - 'Practices for Waiting on the Lord.'" That is when I said, "Oh. This is a roll," a collection of related teachings God is going to roll through my life to teach me something he wants me to learn. Never underestimate God's ability to teach one-on-one. The Holy Spirit is an excellent personal teacher.
Hinn says much the same half way through Practicing the Presence of the Lord, which see. Forty years later he is still teaching what he learned from Kathryn Kuhlman in the 1970’s. This is good. I couldn't stand her, but I loved Kuhlman. I so wanted her to be normal. Thank God she wasn't.
Well, what is this other book I see among the hundreds? A small, half-inch thick tract of lectures given by Evelyn Underhill to Anglican priests in the 1920's. I did not read much of it ten or fifteen years ago when I found it in a used bookstore and bought it because it was, after all, Underhill. I do not know what of it its previous owner read, but the book opened for me to pages 70-71:
"The obstinate pursuit of a special state of meditation or recollection always defeats itself: bringing into operation the law of reverse effort, and concentrating attention on the struggle to meditate instead of on its supernatural end. Yet it is not uncommon to find people forcing themselves from a mistaken sense of duty to develop or continue a devotional method which was never appropriate to their nature, or which they have now outgrown. THEY DELIBERATELY THWART A GENUINE THOUGH AS YET UNFORMED ATTRACTION TO SILENT COMMUNION BY STRUGGLING HARD TO PERFORM A DAILY FORMAL MEDITATION, BECAUSE THEY HAVE MADE THIS A PART OF THEIR RULE OF LIFE; OR DESPERATELY GET THROUGH A ROUTINE OF INTERCESSIONS AND HAVE VOCAL PRAYERS TO WHICH THEY HAVE BEEN INJUDICIOUSLY BOUND, AND WHICH NOW LIMIT THE FREEDOM OF THEIR ACCESS TO GOD (emphases mine). On the other hand, persons whose natural expression is verbal, and who need the support of concrete image, make violent efforts to 'go into the silence' because some wretched little book told them so to do. True silent prayer is full of power and beauty; but I suppose few things are more stultifying in effect than this deliberate and artificial passivity. It is not by such devices that we feed the soul; their only result must be spiritual indigestion. Once more, everyone is not nourished by the same sort of food, or invited by God to the same kind of spiritual activity: the rightful variety of Nature is paralleled in the supernatural life. The important thing is to discover what nourishes you, best expands and harmonizes your spirit, now, at the present stage of your growth."
Yes, all that was one paragraph pages 70-72, which was why I didn't read much of the book.
Hmm. "He comes in when you're quiet." I happened to be silent in a meditation when a demon tried to pass itself off as Jesus, the ascended master, and God opened my eyes to its real nature. I was silently dumbstruck when I was rejected by God and again when subsequently baptized in the Holy Spirit. I was silent in meditation when Jesus said, "Come unto Me," audibly. Silent when I was healed, when my arm grew out, in the shower when he leads my thoughts. I read a bit more of The Anointing and watched a bit more of YouTube. What he taught about submission, that it is not us but God, was and is right on. Why reject him?
It was one of those weird shower insights God gives me that night. Naaman. Naaman was an Syrian leper in Kings chapter 5. He expected Elisha to come out and wave his arms and hocus-pocus him to health. Elisha just said to him through a messenger, "Go wash in the Jordan seven times." Naaman was pissed Elisha didn't even come out to see him and went off in a huff. His servants advised him: "Why not just do it?" I pictured Naaman dipping himself silently seven times in the Jordan, and his flesh became like that of a little child--clean. Naaman was happy, and he offered great riches to reward and honor Elisha, which Elisha adamantly refused. Now, if you understand the scriptures at all, you know that Elijah, Naaman, washing, Elisha, and Elisha's servant Gehazi are all states of consciousness we can fall into and pass through in our lives. They aren't those people; they are us as we travel through states. Kuhlman is Elijah to an evangelist, and he plays Elisha in following her, but he has the state of Gehazi in his consciousness also: unbridled greed, and it has made him as a leper like Naaman. At least in my opinion. No offense.
So what is it to go into the Silence? It is to SHUT UP. Be quiet, still. To "wait upon the Lord" is to WAIT. Wait wait. When God rejected me and I elected to search out why, it wasn't but a moment and he was showing me. When I silently considered what Jesus had done for me, it wasn't but a moment and he was showing me. Jesus was being crucified before my inner eyes and turned his face toward me, it wasn't in more than a moment of silence that he said, "Come unto Me." It isn't a matter of time, though it may take some. I guess it is a matter of searching without getting in the way, like when you enter a classroom eager to learn and are excitedly anticipating whatever it is that is going to be said. You say, "Here," and shut up, ears open.
That phrase is associated with Unity, a nondualistic branch of Christianity with which Neville Goddard was associated. In all the hundreds of times I read or heard those words from Neville's lectures, I never really knew what he was talking about.
And like happened to Neville, I find myself at a point where I need to get rid of some hundreds of books I have accumulated over the years. I have my son posting some of the bigger lexicons and sets on Ebay, and in culling through the boxes for easy sells I stumbled upon Benny Hinn's The Anointing. I had never read it after inheriting it from my mother. I didn't remember why I had written Hinn off my list of actual Christians, so I opened the book to see whether I should sell it or trash it.
Providentially, the book opened to page 51, The Blessing of Silence. The Elijah in Hinn's early life was Kathryn Kuhlman, and he shares how he learned from her to enter silence. By silence she and he mean SHUT UP: for "He comes in when you're quiet." Okay, back to the shelf for the time being.
What had I rejected Hinn for? Arrogance? Greed? Whacko theology? Well, I knew he must be on YouTube.com, so I searched "Bennie Hinn" on YouTube (like I said, I hadn't thought of him for a long time). The first suggestion to come up was "Benny Hinn - 'Practices for Waiting on the Lord.'" That is when I said, "Oh. This is a roll," a collection of related teachings God is going to roll through my life to teach me something he wants me to learn. Never underestimate God's ability to teach one-on-one. The Holy Spirit is an excellent personal teacher.
Hinn says much the same half way through Practicing the Presence of the Lord, which see. Forty years later he is still teaching what he learned from Kathryn Kuhlman in the 1970’s. This is good. I couldn't stand her, but I loved Kuhlman. I so wanted her to be normal. Thank God she wasn't.
Well, what is this other book I see among the hundreds? A small, half-inch thick tract of lectures given by Evelyn Underhill to Anglican priests in the 1920's. I did not read much of it ten or fifteen years ago when I found it in a used bookstore and bought it because it was, after all, Underhill. I do not know what of it its previous owner read, but the book opened for me to pages 70-71:
"The obstinate pursuit of a special state of meditation or recollection always defeats itself: bringing into operation the law of reverse effort, and concentrating attention on the struggle to meditate instead of on its supernatural end. Yet it is not uncommon to find people forcing themselves from a mistaken sense of duty to develop or continue a devotional method which was never appropriate to their nature, or which they have now outgrown. THEY DELIBERATELY THWART A GENUINE THOUGH AS YET UNFORMED ATTRACTION TO SILENT COMMUNION BY STRUGGLING HARD TO PERFORM A DAILY FORMAL MEDITATION, BECAUSE THEY HAVE MADE THIS A PART OF THEIR RULE OF LIFE; OR DESPERATELY GET THROUGH A ROUTINE OF INTERCESSIONS AND HAVE VOCAL PRAYERS TO WHICH THEY HAVE BEEN INJUDICIOUSLY BOUND, AND WHICH NOW LIMIT THE FREEDOM OF THEIR ACCESS TO GOD (emphases mine). On the other hand, persons whose natural expression is verbal, and who need the support of concrete image, make violent efforts to 'go into the silence' because some wretched little book told them so to do. True silent prayer is full of power and beauty; but I suppose few things are more stultifying in effect than this deliberate and artificial passivity. It is not by such devices that we feed the soul; their only result must be spiritual indigestion. Once more, everyone is not nourished by the same sort of food, or invited by God to the same kind of spiritual activity: the rightful variety of Nature is paralleled in the supernatural life. The important thing is to discover what nourishes you, best expands and harmonizes your spirit, now, at the present stage of your growth."
Yes, all that was one paragraph pages 70-72, which was why I didn't read much of the book.
Hmm. "He comes in when you're quiet." I happened to be silent in a meditation when a demon tried to pass itself off as Jesus, the ascended master, and God opened my eyes to its real nature. I was silently dumbstruck when I was rejected by God and again when subsequently baptized in the Holy Spirit. I was silent in meditation when Jesus said, "Come unto Me," audibly. Silent when I was healed, when my arm grew out, in the shower when he leads my thoughts. I read a bit more of The Anointing and watched a bit more of YouTube. What he taught about submission, that it is not us but God, was and is right on. Why reject him?
It was one of those weird shower insights God gives me that night. Naaman. Naaman was an Syrian leper in Kings chapter 5. He expected Elisha to come out and wave his arms and hocus-pocus him to health. Elisha just said to him through a messenger, "Go wash in the Jordan seven times." Naaman was pissed Elisha didn't even come out to see him and went off in a huff. His servants advised him: "Why not just do it?" I pictured Naaman dipping himself silently seven times in the Jordan, and his flesh became like that of a little child--clean. Naaman was happy, and he offered great riches to reward and honor Elisha, which Elisha adamantly refused. Now, if you understand the scriptures at all, you know that Elijah, Naaman, washing, Elisha, and Elisha's servant Gehazi are all states of consciousness we can fall into and pass through in our lives. They aren't those people; they are us as we travel through states. Kuhlman is Elijah to an evangelist, and he plays Elisha in following her, but he has the state of Gehazi in his consciousness also: unbridled greed, and it has made him as a leper like Naaman. At least in my opinion. No offense.
So what is it to go into the Silence? It is to SHUT UP. Be quiet, still. To "wait upon the Lord" is to WAIT. Wait wait. When God rejected me and I elected to search out why, it wasn't but a moment and he was showing me. When I silently considered what Jesus had done for me, it wasn't but a moment and he was showing me. Jesus was being crucified before my inner eyes and turned his face toward me, it wasn't in more than a moment of silence that he said, "Come unto Me." It isn't a matter of time, though it may take some. I guess it is a matter of searching without getting in the way, like when you enter a classroom eager to learn and are excitedly anticipating whatever it is that is going to be said. You say, "Here," and shut up, ears open.
posted by Daniel C. Branham-Steele at
11:50 PM
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