THE SOUND OF SILENCE

Back in 2010 i started to hear ringing in my ears.  First it was very subtle and i only noticed it if it was really quiet around me and i paid attention to it.  But gradually it became louder and more pronounced.  My doctor called it tinnitus, and said it often happens to people as they age, who were exposed to loud noises in their youth.  She said there was a small chance i might see some improvement if i severely restricted salt in my diet for two months or longer, but there was nothing that’s been proven effective to treat it.  She suggested i learn to live with it.
 
Not long after that i was on the road, and one night i took a soak in the jacuzzi at my motel.  i met a young man there who’d been visiting his mother and was now on his way home.  When he mentioned that his mom had three kinds of cancer, i asked him whether she had faith.  He said she did, but the way he said it helped me see that he was struggling in that area.  So i asked him if he had faith.  He said that when he was fifteen, he’d attended a church youth group while wearing a Marilyn Mason t-shirt.  He also had body piercings, and an older woman took one look at him and accused him of being evil.  He was so offended by her judgment that he left the church and never returned.
 
Although he claimed to be an atheist, when he talked about how he had been wrongly judged i could see that he believed in what Jesus taught, so i suggested that he really believed in Jesus.  i told him how a friend and i had taken some young men to a popular church near our motel a year ago, and we’d been judged for not taking our hats off during the service.  i told him that he shouldn’t let some old lady take Jesus captive.  Maybe he believed in Jesus more than she did.
 
As he was getting out of the jacuzzi, i considered praying with him for his mom’s healing.  i’d seen quite a few people healed through prayer, but it always seemed to involve laying hands on them.  Since i couldn’t lay hands on his mom, i doubted if i could help her.  If i tried to pray anyway and my prayer didn’t get answered, my attempt to help them both would backfire and the young man would be driven even farther away from God.
 
All those thoughts raced through my mind in a split second, and then before i realized what was happening, that young man was gone.  i was quickly convicted that i’d been doubting, and i wanted a second chance to help him and his mom, so i prayed that he would return, but he didn’t.
 
Twelve hours later, i met a woman who routinely prays for people remotely.  That didn’t seem like a coincidence, so i asked her about her experience.  She said she was part of a team of volunteers that staff a prayer hotline, and they often give people an e-mail address so they can let them know what’s up after they pray.  They often find that people do indeed get healed.
 
i told her about my previous evening in the jacuzzi with that young man, confessing that my faith was faltering and i needed the faith of the Centurion.  She smiled in a forgiving way and said that even those who often pray remotely sometime struggle with that.  She said it used to concern her what might happen to people’s faith if she prayed and nothing happened, but then God told her that He was big enough to take care of His own reputation.  That was quite a revelation to me!
 
She went on to tell me various stories about healing.  She’d been in Mozambique when many people were very sick.  They were praying for people like they always had, but this time there were no miracles.  They prayed more fervently, but still there was no healing.  They began to seek God, asking if there was something that was grieving His Spirit.  Eventually God asked her a question:  would she continue to pray, even if there were no healings?  He was challenging her to not focus on results.  He wants us to pray for specific results, but He doesn’t want us to focus on results.  He wants us to pay attention to what we can do, and let Him pay attention to what only He can do.
 
Then she told me more stories about different, unconventional ways that God had called her to pray.  Sometimes He calls her to only touch someone – to abide in Him but to say or think nothing.  She has seen healings that way.  One time, He told her to pray via text.  She was talking to a woman over a cell phone who was standing beside another woman in a coma.  Whenever she texted her prayers, the life support monitor hooked up to the woman in the coma would respond.  That was amazing!
 
i wanted to hear more stories, but our time together was short, so i asked her to pray for my tinnitus.  She did, and there seemed to be some improvement.  After she prayed some more, the ringing in my ears faded.  That was huge, because up until then the ringing had been so strong that i heard it constantly, no matter how loud the sounds were around me.  So i excused myself to visit the restroom, where it was quiet and i could see if the ringing was totally gone.
 
When i returned, i told her that there was still a soft ringing, but it seemed like an echo, kind of like you might get when you have a sore leg.  After you get healed, you can still end up limping because there’s memory in the muscles.  Maybe it was like that with the ringing in my ears; maybe my ears or my nerves or my brain are still remembering the ringing.  So i asked her to pray for that, and she did.
 
While we were getting ready to say goodbye, she offered to give me her gift of healing.  i thought that was a great idea, so i sat there while she laid hands on me.  She stood behind me like she had before, but this time she laid hands on my shoulders instead of my ears.  She still didn’t say anything, but i could tell she was imparting her gift to me.
 
Then she asked me to give her “whatever gift i have.”  i readily agreed, although in that moment i was so humbled by our conversation that i didn’t think i had anything to offer her.  When she extended her hands i held them in mine, palms upward.  i looked at her hands and began to pray for them, declaring that they weren’t only for healing but for loving.  As she touched others and held others, they would experience the Father’s embrace.  When we finished praying, she smiled and said that my prayer was an answer to her prayers!  She’d been seeking the very thing that i had just prayed for, and my prayer confirmed that her prayers had been heard.  How good i felt, that God had used me to affirm her in that way!  i marveled that i had heard God clearly, even when i had no sense that i was operating in the supernatural.
 
Over the next several days, the tinnitus in my ears subsided.  At times there was no ringing at all.  Other times, the ringing was there.  Even when i could hear it, i believed God was healing me, and i believed that i’d already been healed, even if i wasn’t fully experiencing it yet.  Ringing or no ringing, i praised God and promised Him that i would continue to praise Him, for the healing and for being the marvelous Father that He is.
 
The next morning, i awoke to very pronounced ringing, the same as i had before i’d met the prayer lady.  i wondered if maybe there were some sort of spiritual thing going on.  Is the ringing a physical manifestation of something happening spiritually?  i was reminded of another story that the prayer lady had told, about how she had a tendency to analyze how God heals, trying to get better results by modifying what she did and deploying practices she believed were more effective.  She cautioned me against thinking that way.  It’s much better to just listen to God in each moment, she said, and simply respond to whatever He says, while continuing to believe, even if nothing seems to happen.
 
A year later, as i was preparing to take a sabbatical, God spoke to me about many things.  He was preparing me to receive many wonderful blessings, all of which would come through stillness.  Without stillness, He said, it was impossible to hear Him clearly.  Through stillness everything that isn’t from Him fades away.  As i live in stillness, He said, i would experience true silence, and the ringing in my ears would end.  The ringing in my ears was a sign that there was static in my connection with Him, but in stillness there is no static.
 
That was the first time that God confirmed there was indeed a spiritual root to my tinnitus.  Over the ensuing years, He confirmed that root again and again, as the ringing in my ears ebbed and flowed.  A week or so ago, i realized that all the ringing in my ears was finally gone!  It had been fading so slowly for such a long while that i stopped hearing it and didn’t notice when it disappeared.  i am healed, praise God!  What a miracle that is!  It took upwards of fourteen years.  Talk about a slow-moving miracle!
 
Last night i journaled about that:  “Since God repeatedly made it clear to me that my tinnitus had a spiritual root, the breakthrough i now have is way bigger than it might seem.  One way to put it is that i’m no longer being assaulted by the stressful spirits that had attacked my ears for years!  Another way to put it is that i’m now so filled with the God of peace that impure spirits have been silenced in my heart and mind and body!  How cool is that?!  The patience of Christ now so resides in me that all opposing spirits have fled!  Thank You, Jesus!  You Yourself are my peace, and nothing can stand against You!”
 
After i wrote those words i fell asleep, and in the middle of the night the anxious spirits i’d just written about rallied.  i couldn’t feel them - i still felt really still - but i could hear them.  They didn’t sound like the howling demons that haunt remote jungles where witchcraft is practiced; they sounded more like the ringing i thought i’d never hear again.  When i don’t focus on that sound, it disappears, but when i think about it, it’s there.  Denying it doesn’t help, but abiding in Jesus does!
 
It occurred to me that by journaling about anxious spirits, i’d unwittingly stirred them up.  They’re like schoolyard bullies who crave attention.  While i was pondering that, a verse came to mind.
 
Do not gloat when your enemy falls; when they stumble, do not let your heart rejoice, or the Lord will see and disapprove and turn His wrath away from them.  Proverbs 24:17-18
 
So i asked God to forgive me for gloating.
 
“I forgive you,” He responded.  “Don’t do it again.”
 
I won’t!  For Jesus said

​Do not rejoice that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.  Luke 10:20
 
i’m so grateful to God, that He is on the throne!  The Father loves me too much to let me wallow in pride.  i needed a rebuke, and i got one.  Those anxious spirits were pleased to do His bidding.
 
The Lord disciplines the one He loves, and He chastens everyone He accepts as His Son.  Hebrews 12:6
​