Silence- where God gets to be your justifier

The past couple of weeks I have been learning what it means to be silent. Over the past several months I have been struggling with this particular male friend whose friendship I had to bring to an end. We went for several months without speaking and just a few weeks ago he contacted me again in an attempt to reestablish our relationship. After a series of e-mails I decided that I still could not be friends with him and when I chose and path he hoped I wouldn't he ended by saying some nasty things.

Anyway, the point being, I sat at my computer reading what he wrote and fuming, wanting nothing more than to refute everything he had said. I knew full well that he didn't believe the things he said but that he wanted to provoke me into continuing the conversation. I wanted to defend myself, to insist that he was wrong and put him in his place. I went to talk to Pastor Judy in hopes of gaining a little perspective and she gave me some very wise advice. She told me to remain silent because it is in silence that we do not have to justify ourselves. She said, "[solitude] is a place where we go, a place where we let go of our need to be validated by the world, where we let go of our need to justify ourselves to it." How freeing is that, to simply let God be your justifier?

It's our speech that gets us into trouble all the time. James tells us to control our tongues, something that I find so very difficult. However when I changed my perspective and started viewing it as using silence and solitude to let God justify if suddenly seemed easier. It's still a difficult thing and I occasionaly find myself wanting to go back and respond to that e-mail or to stand up and yell at this boy when I see him on campus, but I remember Judy's words and keep my big mouth shut.

And the results have been exactly what I have been looking for all along. Throughout our entire e-mail conversation I kept trying to end each e-mail in a way that would imply no response was necessary, but it never worked. Our words just kept coming and things kept escalating. But when I simply replied that I didn't care to carry on the discussion anymore and refused to try and justify myself, the e-mails stopped. Silence is a very powerful thing, my friends, and I think it's something we should all be attempting to use in a Godly way.