Silence
Be still and know that I am God…
A key to being a good leader is being non-anxious in anxious situations. (For more on this, check out Rodger’s series on Anxiety and Leadership.) One practice that has helped me grow in this capacity is silence.
By nature I am not a silent person. I’m active, busy, always forward moving. I have trouble sitting still and trouble resting. In order to have a day of rest, I have to make it a goal to check off at the end of the day, and even then it’s hard (but the fact that it’s a goal keeps me on track – goal-oriented person that I am). On top of that, our culture doesn’t encourage silence—quite the opposite, in fact. We are spoken at and marketed to every waking minute. Many of us expect engagement and entertainment every minute of the day, even falling asleep at night to the sound of the TV.
As Christians, we strive to become more like Jesus every day. Jesus was good at silence. Really good. Remember the storms tossing the ship around so much that the disciples feared for their lives? Jesus was resting. Remember the religious leaders gathered around to stone a woman caught in adultery? Jesus quietly drew a line in the sand and said “whoever is without sin…” Jesus was the ultimate non-anxious presence. He was confident enough in who he was that he didn’t have to say any more than was necessary. Even when being led to his death he didn’t lose this presence. Wow.
Over the past several years I have begun to incorporate deliberate silence into my life. I started by turning the radio off in my car. Then I stopped bringing my iPod with me on walks. Eventually, I booked myself into a retreat center for a 24-hour silent retreat. This practice of deliberate silence opened something up for me: God. I found that when I slowed down for a while and just listened, God showed up. Of course, he was there all along, but now I could hear him.
So what does this silence do to help us be non-anxious? For me, it’s done several things: It’s given me space to listen to God. Usually when I’m anxious about a situation I pray about it. A lot. I ask God over and over to help me and to give me guidance. I’m so busy praying for help that I forget to stop and listen to what God has to say. My daily times of silence are a chance for me to simply open up to God with no agenda. I usually begin by asking God to create in me a clean heart and then I just listen. Sometimes I hear God and sometimes I don’t. And that’s okay.
Another benefit I’ve found in practicing silence is that it has made me much more comfortable being with others in silence. I used to talk to fill up the space in a conversation. I remember getting phone calls from my father-in-law, who would take long pauses in his conversation. I would speak faster and faster and feel my anxiety going higher and higher as I raced to fill up that uncomfortable space. Now I let that space exist, and I’m more content just to be. This ability just to be has had other benefits as well. I’m more able to be with someone who is struggling with deep anxiety or emotion and not feel the need to say anything. Sometimes just being there is the best way to help. This skill is very powerful for pastors, who so often come alongside people who are struggling. It’s certainly helped my practice as a coach.
How are you at practicing silence? Pay attention today to how noisy your life is and how you might incorporate silence into your life. Take some time this week for deliberate silence, make space to hear God, and see what happens. It’s amazing what you might discover.
Post by Meredith.
Image by flattop341.
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