Habakkuk 2:20 — But the Lord is in his holy temple: let all the earth keep silence before him.

I am an introvert. One of the odd things about people like me is that we get a lot of conversations go on in our heads! There’s a lot of other funny things, but this one actually affects my spiritual life. When I’m praying, or during my quiet time, I interrupt myself! I think the same is true of my lovely Myra. We were discussing this the other day, and it led to a discussion of what it meant to “Be still before The Lord”.
One thing to know is that there might be two attitudes of mind to think about. Consider, for instance, Psalm 46:10

Be still, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth.

What does that word “still” mean? It turns out that it has quite a few shades of meaning. The ones that seem most relevant are “to let drop, abandon, relax, refrain, forsake, to let go, to refrain, let alone to be quiet”.
Then there’s the verse from Habakkuk at the head of this piece. There the English text seems plain, and indeed the best senses of the word translated as “keep silent” are “keep silence, hold your peace, hold your tongue”.
I could take many other verses and look at the meaning of this expression, but as I started to contemplate it something started to sink in. There’s a reason that “be still” and “keep silent” occur in so many places with so many shades of meaning. As we sit before The Lord, we pass through many different facets of our relationship. There are times when we are before the awesome Lord of the universe. When The Lord is in His Holy temple no response but silence is appropriate.
When we are with our loving Father we can relax and be comfortable.
When we are Jehovah Jireh, our great provider, we can let go of all our problems and let Him take care of us.
You get the point, I’m sure. If we will let Him, God will always meet us at our point of greatest need. But how do we do that? How do I do that? It comes back to my starting point. I talk too much in my head!
In my business there’s a saying we use quite often — “God gave you two ears and one mouth, and wants you to use them in proportion”. I’d never really thought about applying it to my quiet time and prayer time, but I’m going to try to adopt it. I’m going to try and make that nagging voice in my head shut up for a good part of the time, so the still small voice can get a word in edge ways!