Many things clamor for our attention. Flashing billboards, pop-up ads on YouTube, a blaring TV–our world today is full of noise.
But what we often need most is silence.
In the Bible, God told the prophet Elijah to: “Go out, and stand on the mountain before the Lord.”
There, Elijah experienced a mighty wind that tore rocks apart. An earthquake shook the ground. Then fire raged. But the Lord was not in the wind, the earthquake, or the fire. After the clamor came a still, small Voice.
And in that whisper, God spoke.
“What are you doing out here, Elijah?”
People talk about the benefits of meditation. Meditation harnesses a powerful spiritual law of meditating on God and His word. After all, the Bible says to meditate.
Psalm 119:15: “I will meditate on Your precepts, and contemplate Your ways.”
Isaiah 26:3: “You will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on You.”
Psalm 1:1-3 “Blessed is the man…[whose] delight is in the law of the Lord...and in His law, He meditates day and night. He shall be like a tree planted by rivers of water…and whatever he does shall prosper.”
However, modern-day meditation distorts the power of the practice. That’s because it doesn’t draw us closer to the Lord. Drawing closer to the Lord is where the real power is.
Oftentimes, the noise seems so important.
“This deal will end at midnight! Buy now!” an advertisement screams.
Or: “Have you heard about so-and-so doing such-and-such? You have to hear about this!”
I like to stay busy. It feels better when I’m busy, when I have something to do. I feel like my life is going somewhere. I’ll take on a few extra projects just to prove that I can.
Recently, for instance, I’ve found myself juggling a potential property deal, yearly business schedules and paperwork, plus personal drama, and full-time work.
Finally, my life is coming together more!
Real important, right?
Not really, actually. Real stupid.
I was getting stressed. I feel less manly even writing this, but despite my boast: “I can handle anything!”--I was stressed and overloaded.
As I felt my nerves fray, I realized something: I didn’t have God’s peace. I didn’t have the joy of being with the Lord.
I think all this stuff is important. But what’s most important is my heart for the Lord. If I cannot hear that whisper in the whirlwind–that still, small Voice–truly: nothing else matters.
In the Bible, Jesus warns about this in the parable of the sower. The seed of God’s word can be choked out by: “the cares of this world, the deceitfulness of riches, and the desires for other things”(Mark 4:19).
There’s not anything wrong inherently with much of the noise. But when that busy-ness and stress replaces what God is doing, it becomes a demonic distraction that can strangle out God’s will for our lives.
In another part of the Bible, Jesus went to the house of two sisters.
While one sister, Martha, was busy working, the other sister, Mary, just sat at Jesus’ feet, listening to him share.
Finally, Martha couldn’t handle it anymore.
“Jesus, don’t You care that my sister has left me to do all the work? Tell her to help me.”
Jesus told her: “Martha, Martha, you are worried and troubled about many things.
“But one thing is needed, and Mary has chosen that good part, which will not be taken away from her.” (Luke 10:41-42)
I read about a teenager who reminded me of Mary. She loved to hide away in her room and sing to the Lord for hours on her guitar, drawing close to the Lord.
One day, she got in a terrible accident. For months, she lay in a coma. Doctors warned her parents she might never wake up. And even if their daughter did come out of it, she might be a completely different person entirely.
“We’ve had priests and nuns come out of comas swearing like sailors,” the doctors said.
Yet the quickened spirit of a person is different than a religious soul.
One day, a family member, sitting at her bedside, nodded off when they woke to singing.
What that young woman had chosen–the good part–had not been taken away from her. It brought her back from oblivion. Even though her mind never recovered, whenever she would sing to the Lord or talk about the Lord, her quickened spirit would come alive and she could speak and act normally for awhile.
That is what truly matters.
Turning off the external noise doesn’t matter if you can’t turn off the noise in your own head.
I remember being a kid and asking my parents: “How do I make the thoughts stop?”
A few years ago, a man asked me the same question in a different way:
“Don’t you know how to turn it off?”
My brain can run a thousand miles a minute.
Then, as I watched, the man demonstrated it. He put his head back and closed his eyes. In a minute, he had nodded off.
I followed suit. I closed my eyes as well. I didn’t quite fall asleep, but I got something from that interaction I never forgot.
I finally learned how to separate myself from that mental whirlwind.
It wasn’t easy! But it was necessary.
I’ve written of this before, but I remember stepping outside, my mind whirling from what I thought was a crazy conversation. It was 2am, but the stillness of the night couldn’t penetrate my thoughts. I had to do it.
I had to change the channel.
In the midst of my furious, angry thoughts screaming at me, I began to sing over the noise. As I sang to the Lord, peace returned. God asked me: “Do you want joy?”
I did, so I went to bed with joy and a peace that passes all understanding. I was in God’s presence again. That’s all that matters.
That is the good part. We really can’t take any of this world’s busyness with us.
But our heart for the Lord, and our hunger to be with Him, that gives us something to truly answer the questions we are facing.
And beyond that, it gives us something for the life to come.
