I was alone the night a violent thunderstorm hit our town and the electricity went out. At that moment I was watching a football game, scanning twitter and listening to music. When darkness arrived in a split second I realized that the battery on my iPhone was almost gone. A brief moment of panic ensued.
How could I possibly know whether the big men in golden helmets and tights would take the oblong ball across the field before being tackled by the big men in orange helmets! (These are important things in 2018.)
I realized that in a matter of minutes I would be thrust into the lifestyle millions of people enjoyed in the 1800s! The silence and lack of media connection was unnerving at first. It was then that I sensed the presence of God speaking to me about my addiction to noise. After 15 minutes I had rediscovered the beauty of silence. These days, silence is something we have to fight to achieve, but it is definitely worth the fight. The National Center of Biotechnology stated in a study that two minutes of silence is more relaxing than listening to “relaxing” music, based on changes in blood pressure and blood circulation in the brain.
However, this is not new knowledge for people of the Book. The Bible urges us to experience silence as a spiritual discipline. Every day we are faced with the choice of constant communication, noise and blather or intentional, Jesus-focused silence. Don’t wait for a power outage in order to spend time in silence. God might be trying to tell you something but all the ambient noise and entertainment leaves you deaf to His voice. I believe we would be astounded by all God wants to say to us and yet He never gets a chance because of our preoccupation with news, messages, conversations and entertainment.
“The sole cause of man’s unhappiness is he does not know how to stay quietly in his room.” Blaise Pascal
Indeed, silence is something we must continually and actively seek. It’s not the default these days.The white noise of politics, entertainment, social media, viral videos, large crowds, streaming music, and binge-watched dramas clutter our minds and heighten our already over-stimulated minds. Meanwhile there is a whispering voice that speaks and yet is rarely heard,
The most powerful buttons in your home are the on/off ones.
The more we turn off the noise, the greater opportunity we have to hear from God. Most spend their lives watching fake people live fake lives on rectangular screens. It inhibits us living the real life God beckons us to live. Today, it takes discipline. Lots of discipline, but the pay-off is priceless.
Silence isn’t just golden, it is godly.
This work by Matt Tullos is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International