We live in a noisy world. Yet to meet the God of the Still Small Voice, it will take a quiet place, a stilled soul in order to hear, even more, to listen for the Divine to speak into our darkened void. But speak God will. Create the space. Solitude and silence are necessary gates of opportunity on the pathway to encounter. Experienced and practiced by Jesus, they are the secrets of the ancients. Most often, both are feared because it seems before we ever meet God in these sacred disciplines, we will first meet ourselves. In the silence, inner thoughts once suppressed raise their condemning tones and must be intentionally quenched before we can move further and deeper. It is because, on the other side of the fray, are the more meaningful things of the Spirit, the transformational waters of engaging spirituality. Thus, the battle is fought in the simplicity of the sequestered life, in the barren wilderness, where we are alone with God, where our adversary has lost his edge, and the victory of God's creative Voice finally breaks through to heal and make whole. Neal W. May is Founder and Senior Pastor of Faith Fellowship Church in Macedonia, Ohio, and holds a Doctor of Ministry degree from Ashland Theological Seminary. He attended Kent State University during the turbulent '60s and earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree with a minor in education. Pastor May has experienced the balance of both Spirit and Word, illumination and reason. He is Founder and President of Hosanna Bible Training Center and instructor of Biblical Interpretation and Contemporary Preaching. In addition, he has served as an adjunct professor for Ashland Theological Seminary where he has taught Small Group Ministry, Communication and Conflict in the Church, and Archaeology of the New Testament.
