Silence has a dual effect on most of us. It intrigues, yet terrifies. It beckons us to follow, and seemingly warns us not to get too close. It sharpens our perception, but does not promise what we might hear. Silence unlocks the door to the caverns where your dreams and desires are hidden and beckons you inside for a tour of the gallery. The second lesson I learned was unsettling: Silence will expose the real you.

Once you reach that place where you can hear the tempo of your breathing and the cadence of your heart, you will be forced to come face to face with the rhythm of who you are. By choice, most of us fear this encounter with authenticity, and do all we can to avoid it. Who we are is often not who we think we are and certainly not who we want to be. Therefore, it is easier to live a life of doing instead of being. Being demands that you make peace with yourself and be yourself—that “someone” most of us live in terror of actually meeting.

Just an encouragement here: God made you (all of you—the inside and outside you), and He made you for a purpose. He has planted divine destiny deep within your spirit. But…you will never express that destiny in a tangible way until you yada (Hebrew for experience—fully embrace in relationship—to know in the fullest sense) the real you hidden deep within.

I have found over the last couple of months that my hidden self will often slip out from within the vast hiding place of my mind in the wee hours of the morning around 3 a.m., as God will often shake me awake and step back to watch the collision. It is a terrifying thing to run head on with your own self.

It is here the hidden desires and dreams of your heart find expression and exposure. I am not speaking of evil or wicked perversion, but simply the divine wish list—the dreams of your spirit. Here, fear and faith crash into one another like a linebacker hitting a running back. Fear will sweep you right out of this place and rock you back to sleep, but faith will pause and explore with care the finger prints of God on this intriguing terrain.

In my experience these silent encounters will seem like ethereal dreams, until one day the sheer weight of these collisions push the impact of what I’ve seen and heard in the silence into my conscious mind during the day, regardless of the noise level. The confrontation of silence has now become a confrontation of choice. I must now choose between who others perceive me to be and who I really am. That is why most people refuse to visit those silent places. It is far easier (they think) never to have gone there, and blandly live out the expectations of others. Reality says not to choose is in fact to choose. The choice of the future is made in the decisions of today.

Lesson #2: Silence will expose the real you. Divine destiny demands the decision of authenticity. You must be true to yourself or live a lie. The choice resides with you.