How often do you experience silence? What priority do you assign it? For me, it’s priority #1. If I don’t start my day with an uncluttered slice of time free from noise and distractions, I’m off. I wasn’t always aware or appreciative of that need. Rather, it was prescriptive at a time in my life when I was hurting, lost, and low and in need of strength, clarity, direction, and healing. Now, it’s a habit that is foundational to my emotional, mental, physical, and spiritual health.
In fact, the lack of silence is what ails many people today. How many of us wake up and go 0-60 mph like a Tesla? We load our days with activities, clutter our calendars with appointments, and fill the air with podcasts, TV shows, or music. We do anything and everything to drown out the sounds of silence, which is really sad.
What do I learn in the silence? That God often speaks in a calm, slow voice, the kind that is audible only in moments of silence. Silence is the only way to hear and experience that voice.
It will seldom happen by accident. You have to be intentional. You have to quiet that smartphone, turn off the TV, rearrange priorities, and frankly, schedule the solitude for yourself on your calendar.
Life does not lack distractions, which compete for our mindshare. Left to their own devices and without discipline, our minds will migrate to the most seductive temptations without regard for our well-being. Those snares aim to take us down a path of destruction dressed up as pleasure. The strangest secret of life is that we become what we think about and unless we disengage our minds from these snares, we will become a prisoner of them.
Silence enables disengagement and empowers us to focus on what’s really important. We were all born to do something meaningful in life and with God’s help, silence will help us figure out what it is.
MindWolves 