Something else I’m terrible at is silence. I don’t do well with silence or being still or learning to quiet my thoughts and let God speak through those times. I am quite practised at awkward silences in conversation, so you’d think I’d be better at normal silence, but I’m not. I always have a song playing in my head or I am rehearsing a conversation I might have with someone in the near future. Or I am thinking down about 50 different tracks at the same time.

But I’m learning silence is good. Solitude is a healthy thing and a way to hear from God like you won’t any other way. Silence says to God, You matter enough to me that I will make time to spend time with You and hear from You, not just throw up my laundry list of requests and desires. Silence is where I quiet my soul and rest my heart in God. Silence is where I can find physical and spiritual rest and see things from a right perspective again.

I think of it this way. When I took my advertising class in college, one thing I learned was the importance of white space in an ad. You don’t want to cram an ad full of images and text, because it would overwhelm the reader. White space helps to bring more attention to the ad and makes it easier to take in. In the same way, a book completely filled with print with no white space would be daunting and hard to read. The margins on the top and bottom and sides help the reader better take in the text.

In the same way, creating margins in our lives through silence helps us see what’s in our lives better. Having “white space” through solitude helps us to better focus on the important things in life and to not be driven along by the tyranny of the urgent (a phrase borrowed from a great book, by the way!)

Learn to be silent. Learn to be still and take every thought captive and create an environment into which God can speak into your life. I am learning this takes time and practice and patience with myself, because every 15 seconds my mind wanders off on a tangeant. The key is to not give up, but to refocus and keep making the effort for silence.

As with any other spiritual discipline, there are the benefits of spiritual growth and building character and knowing God’s heart more. But above all, we do these things because God is SO COMPLETELY worth it. It’s a way of saying, “This much I am grateful for You. This much I desire not what You can give me or do for me,  but You Yourself. Give me as much of You as I can handle and then a little bit more!”

Amen and amen!