How Silence Deepens Your Roots in the Lord
Incorporating the practice of silence is essential in deepening your roots in the Lord. Without silence, we may never fully hear from the Lord. For many of us, our time with God consists of us talking to Him. However, there are many things He wants to share with us if only we will be quiet and still. I have been practicing silence in my walk with God for several years, and I am going to share with you how it has transformed my life…and how it can change yours too.
My first silent retreat
It’s about 6 am. Or I assume based on the darkness. Sleepily and habitually, I reach over to the side table to grab my phone to check the time, and I quickly remember that I am in the middle of my first 48-hour silent retreat. I don’t have access to my phone.
I resort to looking at the digital clock plugged in on the nightstand. 6:02 am. I’m slightly annoyed- I thought I would have slept in longer to savor the gift of sleep without kid interruptions.
I try to go back to sleep, but as I am tossing and turning, I clearly hear a whisper in my heart, “come away with me, my darling.” I know this voice. Or at least I think I do. I brush it off. Maybe those were my own thoughts.
The voice comes again. “Come away with Me.”
Surely, I can’t deny this sweet, tender, and patient voice. I immediately jump out of my bed with excitement- could the Lord really be waking me up to call me away with Him? Where does He want me to go? It’s 6 am
My roommate is still sleeping, so I throw on my glasses, put on my slippers, grab my fuzzy blanket, a bag of books, and my Bible, and head out of the hotel room.
So I make my way down the hallway and up the stairs to the cozy Great Room of the Oak Forest Retreat center. It’s one of my favorite rooms on the property because it has a giant wood-burning fireplace with stone wrapping around the hearth and all the way up to the ceiling. It has oversized leather armchairs and big windows overlooking the endless forest landscape.
It is as if the Lord is guiding me to a particular spot. I pass the comfy oversized armchairs and end up plopping myself in a chair in front of the giant east-facing window that overlooks the forest.
The sun is just beginning to rise, and I can barely see the light as it is starting to peek through the trees. I take a deep breath in and out, staring out at the trees in total peace and silence, as my hands warm as they cup my coffee mug.
Total peace washes over me as I sit there quietly with the Lord- no agenda, no need to expedite my bible study this morning in fear that a little one might wake up too early. I am so grateful the Lord woke me up early for this moment.
And so I just sit and stare and savor God’s creation and linger.
Linger.
Lingering is such a perfect verb to describe what a silent retreat feels like. In a world that craves busyness, a 100 mph pace, and non-stop working, a silent retreat creates space for you to linger…
Linger…
In God’s presence
Reading the Bible
In Bed
Around a fire
Over a meal and a delightful dessert
Through the forest and enjoy God’s beautiful creation
Reading a book without the rush to finish
Over a hot cup of coffee
Linger…
It’s a word that I would hardly use to describe today’s culture. And it’s a verb that we all would greatly and deeply benefit from.
The Oxford dictionary defines “linger” as to “stay in a place longer than necessary because of a reluctance to leave.”
That is how slipping into silence feels. Once you enter silence and find how comfortable it truly is, you want to stay in silence and you never want to leave.
When you create daily, weekly and monthly moments of silence in your life, your roots in the Lord will go deeper…far deeper than you could ever imagine.
What is silence?
At this point, you may be wondering- what do you mean by silence?
The practice of silence dates back thousands of years. If we are honest, many of us think about monks when we hear the term “practicing silence.”
In today’s society, practicing silence seems to be a thing of the past. In an era where we are consumed with our phones and have non-stop noise via TV, beeps, notifications, and more, intentionally making time for silence can be a challenge.
So for the sake of being extra clear, silence means zero noise both in the physical sense and the unseen. By physical noise, I mean having nothing present that you can physically hear with your ears, such as music, podcasts, conversations or talking, the tv, radio, or any other device that makes a sound.
By the unseen noise, I mean the noise of this world that creates relentless distractions for us in our minds. This would mean your phone, the internet, the newspaper, celebrity magazines, or any other technology that keeps you in the world or distracted from the things of God.
You see, the Lord wants to speak to you, but He doesn’t want to have to shout over the noise of the world to speak to your heart.
Deepen Your Roots in the Lord in Silence
He is a jealous God, and He wants your full attention. He wants to sit with you- like a friend at a coffee shop- lingering over that hot cup of joe as you share your heart with Him and He with you.
From my experience, it’s very challenging to have a heart-to-heart with a dear friend in a noisy, distracting environment. Have you ever had a play date with another friend and tried to “catch up” while your kids played together? LOL. You know what I mean. It’s basically impossible to go beyond the surface-level conversation.
Similarly, this is what often happens in our rushed, crazy busy, LOUD lives. We try to take 5 minutes in the morning to “chat” with the Lord- racing through our daily bible verse or devotion, and hoping to get some new revelation or to hear His voice.
Specifically, many of us even get into the Word, and within 2 minutes, we are distracted by our to-do list racing through our mind, our phone beeping with emails or texts coming across the screen, or heaven forbid- getting pulled into the black hole of social media.
I understand this because this used to be my life.
Instead of focusing on who I was becoming in the Lord, I was more consumed with what I did or achieved or how much I could fit into a day.
WORKING FOR the Lord was a greater priority than BEING with the Lord.
And how backward is that?
The Practice of Silence Will Slow You Down
I was the classic “do it all, be it all” kind of woman. I used to believe that I had to be the one to do all the things for my husband, my kids, my team, and my life.
“If it was to be, it was up to me!” was my life motto.
I tried to be all the things for all the people, and eventually, I didn’t want to do anything for anyone anymore.
Undoubtedly, I burned out.
Can you relate?
And this wasn’t my first rodeo with burn-out. For as long as I can remember, I had this unfortunate love affair with doing too much. In high school, I tried to do it all. I joined the National Honor Society, German Club, Eco Club, varsity swim team, ballet, and piano lessons. Many nights, I would stay up until midnight just trying to complete the heavy workload from taking all the A.P. (advanced college) classes. Lo and behold, I burned out.
My solution? I graduated and moved to Germany to try and get away from it all.
Burned Out, Exhausted, and Crabby Jesus Follower
I clearly didn’t learn my lesson. One year later, I started college playing the same old game. I took on all the extracurriculars- President of the student council and women’s residential life, college newspaper columnist, clubs, and multiple jobs all while doing 18 credits a semester. Talk about a recipe for burnout.
This constant need to be busy continued into my young adult life and early marriage years. You can read more about Our Story of burnout HERE. Oftentimes, I crave busyness because it makes me feel like I am accomplishing. And when I place my worth in accomplishment, then I fill my schedule and life with endless responsibilities, tasks, and projects.
{Side note: Are you a parent of a high school or college student? Do they have multiple things on their plate? If they do not have a regular rhythm of rest, rejuvenation, and sabbath, please check in with them ASAP. They are most likely drowning and are also probably doing a really good job of making it look like they aren’t.}
If you are anything like me- you feel the pressure to do it all and be it all. Like the world is just not going to function without you.
And unfortunately, this mindset ends up creating cranky, crabby, exhausted, depressed, anxious, depleted, and burned-out Jesus followers.
And what good is a burnt-out, exhausted, depleted, crabby Jesus follower?
What kind of an impact can a burnt-out, crabby, depleted Christian actually make?
My guess? Probably not a big one. Or worse yet- a wrong one.
No wonder people aren’t attracted to Christianity.
We preach peace and that our Savior is the Prince of Peace. And yet the majority of believers are running around like chickens with their heads cut off.
When will we stop? When is enough, enough?
Have you ever heard this before? If the enemy can’t make you bad, he’ll make you busy.
Some of you are so busy doing things “for God”, that you have made little time to stop and just be with God. To rest with Him, enjoy Him, and listen to Him.
And in my humble opinion, it’s His voice that actually matters. And this is where silence comes in.
Silence refreshes the soul.
The Lord is my shepherd; I lack nothing.
Psalm 23:1-3
He makes me lie down in green pastures,
He leads me beside quiet waters,
He refreshes my soul.
Silence is like the quiet waters that Psalm 23 speaks about. It deeply refreshes the soul. It is a practice that stills the heart and mind, and it is truly amazing how PEACE immediately washes over you.
Silence (in the best way possible) forces you to slow down in order to reflect and dig deep into your heart.
If your life is busy or you have little time to be quiet with the Lord, I promise you, there is hope. Life doesn’t have to be crazy busy with little to no silent moments in our lives.
Here’s the thing. We don’t bow to the altar of busyness.
Silence is our honor and privilege to bow before the King of Kings, the Prince of Peace. We can choose to make silent moments throughout our day, week, and month a priority, just like anything else.
The Lord has many things He wants to share with you in silence.
There are so many things He wants to talk to you about and reveal to you in silence. God wants you to slow down to find healing, rest, and restoration. He wants to take you deeper.
So this is where silence comes in. He wants you to “be still and know that He is God” (Psalm 46:10)
I’ve since been on 7 silent retreats and countless one-day personal silent retreats since that first 48-hour retreat a few years ago.
And whenever I go back to that first retreat location, without fail, He still wakes me up every morning at 6 am and calls me to that same Great Room with the fireplace in front of the giant window overlooking the forestry.
And I sip on coffee and just watch as He lifts the sun into the sky. He has spoken many wondrous, comforting and deep things to me in that spot. It has sort of become “our spot.”
And when I reflect on those morning “silent conversations,” they don’t really seem that silent after all.
