The Silence Test
Want to know how you’re really doing? Sit in silence.
Sit silently for at least 10 minutes – even an hour if you can handle it.
More and more, I’m learning that silence reveals what’s really happening inside me.
Whenever I eliminate all the noise around me and sit in complete silence, I find the quiet either reveals a peace or a disquiet.
I wish that silence always revealed a peace, but I find often it doesn’t. I might find frustration, tension, anger, resentment, lust, envy, restlessness or any combination of things.
The valuable thing for me is that when I discover that, I also discover what I am confident God wants to work on. Whatever the quiet reveals can be fuel for my prayer life. It can reveal something I need to work through with God, with friends or sometimes even with a counselor.
Best of all, I’m finding resonance in the biblical truth that it is when we are still that we best know that God is God (Psalm 46).
The challenge of course is that no one will ever ask you to simply sit still for an hour. No one ever texts you and asks you if you can carve out some time for silence and reflection. Everybody just wants one more small slice of you. And truthfully, those of us who resist silence like that.
It is easier to stay busy than it is to stay honest with ourselves. It’s easier to pretend everything’s great even if we suspect it might not be.
Which would be a mistake. Because soul work is the most important work we can do. It animates and impacts every other aspect of our lives from our relationships to our work to our family.
Ever take a silence test?
I’m taking them often. I don’t even like what I find much of the time. Which is exactly the point.
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