This post is part of Five Minute Fridays Link-Ups. Here is my post for this week’s prompt:
Time begins now….
Today I ran errands alone and didn’t turn on the car radio. I didn’t listen to a podcast or an audio book. I didn’t even have Siri give me directions except on a very short jaunt to the UPS store that I hadn’t been to before.
Maybe it seems like a small thing, to just sit in silence, but it seems like these days we always have some kind of background noise going. My children listen to audio books while they build Lego. We listen to a radio show during lunch. We read aloud to each other. I often have quiet instrumental music playing in the background when I am doing my morning Bible study. We like to watch videos on topics that interest us.
All these are good and often beneficial activities. But sometimes, I think we forget to that in order to think our own thoughts, and more importantly, to listen to the thoughts of God, we must have silence. Quiet. Be still, my soul…
This was the main message of my recently finished read of Sarah Clarkson’s newest book, Reclaiming Quiet: Cultivating a Life of Holy Attention. It is not just about physically blocking out the noise of media, but also the mental, emotional, and spiritual noise that comes with living in a constantly spinning news cycle and purposefully addictive social media.
End time…
If you are feeling the pull to get quiet, to find not only good reasons to reduce the noise in your life, but also ways to do it that will help turn your attention on God, I highly recommend Sarah’s book. This isn’t sponsored or anything (other than the fact that my link above is an Amazon affiliate link). I just genuinely loved Reclaiming Quiet and think it is a very needed message for our time!
Silence is a wonder and Into Great Silence i love to ramble as I read. 1
Amen to “to listen to the thoughts of God, we must have silence. Quiet. Be still, my soul.”
I so enjoy my intentional quiet solitude time with Jesus. Love this message.
FMF #11
I seem to have a strong need for silence most of the time. If I am listening, I listen; if working, writing, praying, reading, thinking then I can not listen to something else.
My husband is forever attached to his radio, but he knows to switch it off if I come to his space, else I cannot speak. As I write that it sounds extreme. Maybe it is.