Silence

Like I stated in my previous post, this week I practiced silence as my spiritual discipline. Biggest eye opener, I in fact did not have silence in my daily life. My silence consisted of when I slept. My spiritual discipline handbook explained silence asks for two things: patience and waiting. Two things I am not very good at.

I set a ten minute time increment each day to “check out” from life, to focus on God, to marvel in His creation, and simply rest in the presence of God. These times consisted of turning of the radio in my car on my way to school. (I lost count on how many times I reached for the dial to turn it back on) I sat in my deer blind (not with my bow or any distractions, just merely enjoying God’s creation. Taking a walk at dusk down our drive and marveling at the sunset were just some of the ways I allowed silence into my life. Was it hard? Oh yea! I had to concentrate on not allowing “my life issues” to come into my thoughts, to avoid trying to solve problems or plan the rest of my day.  As the week went on, it became a little easier to welcome silence into my life; in fact I realized how much I need it.

It was shocking to look over my day and looks back at the many conversations I was involved in, I could remember who I had it with, but not always what we talked about. The many songs that came on the radio, I couldn’t remember the ones I heard. My days start to melt together and already it’s the weekend, silence for me splits it up.  Silence brings a sense of peace in my life. It’s a time to rejuvenate, a time to be open to what God has to say, and it’s a time where I can take a step out of my day and give to the Lord.

I’m going to end this post with a quote from the book. “Lean into God, trusting that being with him will in silence will loosen your rootedness in the world and plant you by streams of living water. It can form your life, even if it doesn’t solve your life.” (Calhoun) It was hard to give up trying to solve my current problems or analyzing what happened in the day as I’m sitting there in silence, it still is, but it’s getting easier as I trust in God for peace and rest in Him.