Some time last week--or maybe it was two weeks ago, I really don't remember--I was at my friend Charlie's house and she could tell there was something I needed to talk about. The problem was, I wasn't really sure what. Or how.
But then, I think she knew that.
She knew that it would take a while for me to figure it out, and then even longer after that to get it out. She knew that it would begin with a long, prolonged silence. A silence that was augmented by the addition of her own.
At the beginning of it, she had told me that she wouldn't say anything until I had said everything.
And so for the next couple hours she didn't say a word.
When I was done I realized she had already known a great deal of what I had told her, and saying it had taken so long and been so hard. Why did I need to say it?
I told her I felt that way sometimes when I pray as well. God already knows how my day was. The scriptures tell me that He knows the thoughts and intents of my heart. So why is there such importance placed on the vocalization and communication of these thoughts?
I am quite familiar with the promise repeated multiple times in the scriptures, "Ask and ye shall receive."
"But sometimes," I told my friend, "I'm just not sure what to ask."
Charlie's answer was simple. She explained that while I was talking she had wanted so badly to comment--to give her input and suggestions. "God," she said, "wants to comment, too."
Perhaps that is the chief reason that throughout the ages men of God have expounded on the importance of giving God time to speak to us, of waiting in silence after our prayers.
It reminded me of something I had noticed in my scripture study that week. I had been highlighting with a yellow colored pencil every time a reference to God or Christ appeared in the scriptures. As I had flipped back through all my mostly-yellow pages I noticed that at least half of the references were engrained in the phrases "Thus saith the Lord," "the Lord God hath spoken it," and "the Lord hath said" and an interesting thought hit me, "God must love to talk."
It was almost funny to me to picture God as that toddler that just keeps talking because they love the sound of the words and how they communicate and they want to tell you all about the game they made up with their friend, and how their milk tasted weird after eating their oranges, and how they woke up in the middle of the night because Bubba, their stuffed teddy bear, had fallen off the bed.
The difference perhaps between God and this toddler is that God doesn't just love to talk TO us. He loves to talk WITH us. He loves to hear what we have to say. And He loves to comment.
If we will just speak, and then listen.
