C4 Contributor and Pastor – Austen Drake
I took a class with Dr. Don Whitney in seminary on Spiritual Disciplines. It was a wonderful class and it challenged me in many ways, not excluding showing me that there were more ways to grow in my faith than just by reading my Bible and praying. Those were central, of course, but there are others disciplines that buttress those and provide additional life to our relationship with God. One of those disciplines is that of silence. The solitude of silence is likely the most difficult discipline that we can practice as Christians today because our worlds are filled with endless stimuli and competing priorities that seem to never end because of the pace with which we live in the West. We have so many worlds at our fingertips through social media and the internet, and we can get lost in those worlds and forget the one in which we actually live. The one that God has called us to – our friends, our family, our community.
Silence is able to bring us that. Presence.
However, in that presence, we face the unfinished business of our minds. Psychologists call this unfinished business “open loops”. In these moments, our minds will inevitably bring up unresolved conflicts, worries, regrets, and questions about identity. The silence we enter into doesn’t create those anxieties and those open loops, it just exposes them. It makes me wonder if we haven’t been using TV, social media, work, and hobbies to occupy our minds as a tranquilizer for what waits for us in the silence. Then, we wonder why we’re so anxious and depressed when we have so many open loops in our minds.
The deep work of our soul is found in silence, and the work for us is monumental, largely, because we’ve neglected that work for much, if not all, of our lives. Silence and solitude seems like a marginal task for flourishing; in reality, it is a difficult work that will produce much fruit if we’ll strive for it with consistency. Beyond these open loops lies the better husband, father, wife, mother, child, and follower of Jesus that we desire to be.
The Benefit of Silence
As we navigate silence and solitude, our first instinct is going to be to go to our phones. Have you ever noticed that? Whenever there’s nothing to do, we instinctively reach for our phones. Even if there’s not a notification to look at and we’re caught up on social media, we’ll still reach for the phone. It’s because we’re looking for a dopamine hit. When we scroll, text, look at a new video, we find dopamine in novelty.
If we embrace the silence and solitude, and fight the urge to reach for our phones, then we’ll truly have achieved something. We’ll begin to recalibrate our nervous system. See, when we’re constantly switching between social media, YouTube, responding to emails, texting, our nervous system releases dopamine because of the anticipation of what’s going to be next. When we sit in silence and solitude, we become aware of what we’re feeling. Initially, it will likely be anxiety because we’ve trained our nervous system to anticipate something coming next. When there’s nothing next, it can feel like we’re short-circuiting, temporarily. If you embrace this over a period of time, the anxiety will subside and you’ll begin to notice other sensations in your body, other emotions that begin to pop up, and you’ll have the opportunity to explore these with greater attention.
In addition, our attention span will increase, which means we’ll be able to give greater focus to our reading, whether that be in the Word or in a book of our choice; we’ll be a more present spouse, parent, and friend (think about all the people you see in a restaurant who run out of things to talk about and instinctually gravitate toward their phones); your tolerance for boredom will increase and solutions will begin to arise in your mind to problems that you may have been facing for a great while.
How do we achieve this, though? Especially in the cultural climate we live in today, where everything is so noisy and fast-paced, and our schedules are jam-packed from the time we wake up until we go to sleep.
The How-To of Silence
My wife and I recently had our first baby and we are so excited about him being in our world! He’s completely turned our lives upside down, but in the best way possible, albeit everything has become a little more chaotic. However, it removed any spare time that I would have had to practice silence and solitude as we would typically think about – leaving the house for a day or two and going to the mountains or the beach or something like that. It’s just not feasible because I want to be around to support my wife and to be available for our son.
In lieu of a mountain retreat, I find time in the spaces between appointments. It could be while I’m driving to work, and instead of turning on music or listening to a podcast, I drive in silence. I pray and I think and I meditate on Scripture or a lesson that God is trying to teach me. When my son wakes up in the night, I’ll rock him back to sleep. In those moments, I find solitude as my son falls asleep in my arms. In those moments, going to my phone isn’t an option so I can’t send an email or even read an article or a chapter of Scripture. That doesn’t mean the time can’t be redeemed. I can still pray for my boy, the people in my church, my friends, and my family. I can meditate on God’s Word and even sit in the silence of the moment and allow the Spirit to stir something up in my heart. Perhaps something that I need to repent of, control I need to relinquish, or something about His character that I can rest in.
We can also build space into our schedules. Nothing crazy, just 15 minutes between meetings to disconnect, pray, and be quiet. I often have several meetings that line up back-to-back, but building space between those meetings to be quiet keeps me sharp and present as I walk into each new meeting. In that 15 minutes, don’t reach for your phone; rather, be still, pray through a few verses from a Psalm and for the next meeting, and then enter into your next meeting.
Your Challenge
If you try to build all of these rhythms into your life all at once, you may become overwhelmed and abandon the project entirely. Instead, build small rhythms of silence and solitude into your life over a period of 6 months to a year. Stack one on top of the other and by the end of the year, you’ll not only notice a significant difference, but you’ll feel significantly different. Pick one of the below to start and do it consistently for 3 weeks before adding another.
- Drive to and from work in silence.
- At the end of each night, spend 10 minutes in silence.
- Build 15 minutes into your schedule throughout the day to be still.
- If you’re able, on a monthly basis, spend a day away from everyone. Turn your phone off, leave the city, and be in nature. Don’t take music with you, only your Bible and a journal. Be still in nature and see how God speaks to your heart and what he reveals to you.