Silence is important: Using it for your Mind and Spiritual Connection

Silence isn't just important, it's vital. Learn how to use silence not just for mental health, but for spiritual well-being too!

When was the last time you truly sat in silence with the Lord?

We hear a lot of noise in our world. The banging drums of the overly serious nature of the world keep our ears ringing and our souls in a disheveled state of unrest. We struggle to keep our total peace because everything is thrown at us all at once.

Silence Used to be the Norm. Not Anymore.

While the man of yesteryear may have had an opportunity to get away from the distracting chaos of humanity, we now are not afforded such an easy escape. In past centuries, there was no television, computer, cell phone, tablet, radio, or marketing engines of all sorts to sap up our time. Today, we stare at screens incessantly, telling ourselves that the soul-sucking death stare at a screen for hours on end is good and productive.

Then, to relax, we doom scroll on any of the various social media platforms, feeling worse about ourselves as the tiny voice locked in the corner of our consciousness pleads to shut off the phone and stop hitting the button on the social media slot machine.

We're consuming ourselves to death. We're blinding our eyes with artificial lights burning into our souls. We're warping our brains, personalities, and inner monologues with the constant blather of countless people all vying for our time.

And if we're not careful, we'll waste our time on pretentious blogs that use egregious vocabulary, which merely distracts from the half-baked ideas the author hopes to communicate. Run from those blogs. Do it now.

In fact, now is your chance to let that author know how annoyingly pretentious and high-brow his blog actually is.

If you're still here, then I do have the solution to the noise and the monstrous world system that Satan is perfecting before your very eyes.

The Solution to the Noise: Silence

It's found in the stillness. In the quiet.

When was the last time you truly sat by yourself, with no real sensory input, for more than 15-20 minutes? Do you immediately think, "I'd be so bored if I sat staring at a blank wall for that long"?

You need to. Now, whether it's a blank wall or you just close your eyes is up to you. But we, as modern Americans, never give a second thought to how much information and entertainment we're taking in each hour.

In fact, right when we start to get bored, we itch and yearn for distraction.

Recently, I proposed this to someone as the biggest cause of their racing mind. They lamented that they could never shut their mind off. And that's when I made the connection.

Silence Helps Your Internal Processor

The reason our minds never shut off is that we never allow them to fully process anything.

As soon as boredom strikes, we pick up our phone or turn on the radio. Right when the mind finally has the opportunity to start sorting through the massive amounts of data we've ingested, we pour more gasoline on the fire. We never allow the processor to complete its task.

When the boredom hits, it is precisely when we should lean into the silence. We should embrace the boredom and allow our minds to run and ponder. After a burst of an exasperated sprint like a crazed meth head maniac, your mind will exhaust itself and settle down. And that's when the real answers start coming. That's when perspective hits.

And that's not even the more important side of things: the spiritual ramifications of silence.

Silence with the Lord

The truth is, the voice of the Lord is not found in the din of the world, but in the stillness of the quiet. When we get alone with the Lord and shut out all of the distractions and noise, we can finally understand the true definition of God's peace. Slowly, as we spend time by ourselves with the Lord and allow Him some room to breathe, we'll build an understanding of what it means to walk in the peace of the Lord.

Many of us read our Bibles for a few minutes in the morning, or we say a 30-second prayer before another meal. That's not enough. That's paying lip service to a God who wants to be intimate with us.

Imagine, if you will, a marriage that you spent as little dedication to your wife as you do to your Lord. Maybe you're re-reading a letter she wrote you 20 years ago for a few minutes in the morning. Then, you call her for about 20 seconds before a meal or two, and maybe you say a few sentences to her before bed.

Would that be much of a marriage? Would she be able to say that she knows you intimately?

We do this to the Lord every day. We do the bare minimum, if at all, and then wonder why we struggle so much with a lack of peace in our hearts. We wonder why we can't hear the voice of the Lord, or why He seems so distant.

Then, we go to church on a Sunday, fall on our face during worship, and expect that 1-2 hours once a week to make up for the other 166 hours in the week in which we don't do much to grow our relationship with the Lord.

We see Him as our last resort in whom to talk to, and wonder why the wisdom we receive from the world never seems to get us where we need to go.

God Fills the Silence...Peacefully.

The silence can be filled with the Lord's voice, but more beautifully: the silence is filled with His peace. It shines with His light. It becomes vibrant with His colors and His songs. The more you spend in the silence with the Lord, the more resilient you become in the midst of the war and carnage of the world, because you carry the peace of the Lord that beats back the chaos. After all, the light will always chase away the darkness.

You owe it to the Lord and yourself to structure a more robust routine of silence with the Lord. Perhaps you have children and feel you can't get a moment by yourself ever. I know the feeling. I have four young boys. However, if I don't make time with the Lord a first priority, my family suffers. I become more influenced by the stressors of life and the rigors of attempting to navigate enemy territory.

The World Hates Your Silence. Fight Back.

In the end, I can either make time for the Lord and grow with Him, or allow the world to consume what little time I have in my day. The social media feeds, platforms, emails, and all the rest will gladly vacuum up what little time we have and then leave us feeling dry and desiccated.

There is no fulfillment in the entertainment in the world, only a brief spurt of enjoyment and pleasure. Sooner or later, we're left panting for more like an itch that can never be truly scratched.

At the end of your life, you will be the culmination of how you spent your time. Was it high-quality time with the Lord or constant consumerism with no true value?

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