LIE: Silence is boring

Lie: Silence is boring.

Truth: Silence is not boring. Without silence, we cannot listen, think or pray.

It used to be that silence was golden but it’s now been morphed into radioactive plutonium. We avoid silence like the plague (I know, too many metaphors). Ever since Sony invented the transistor radio in 1960, and therefore the portability of personal sound, the perceived value of silence has dramatically diminished. The phonograph, radio, then television increased the presence of manufactured sound and made it nearly omnipresent. But we still experienced sound aloud — the sound was external to our ears. Then the Sony Walkman, the iPod and finally the smartphone put sound under our personal control and internalized it. Over time, the price of internal sound declined and improved until we now have our own inner concert arena.

Given the range of cheap, quality sound available today: podcasts, radio, and music — country, pop, classical, alternative — how could silence compete? Because manufactured sound is now everywhere, it appears to be our ‘default’ environment. By comparison, silence now appears empty – simply a void of sound. This is a foundational perception problem.

As silence has slowly disappeared, we actually see little to no value in silence at all. So what value have we forfeited? What kind of value did it have, and could it still have if we could rediscover its power? Most Christians don’t have a clue. What we fail to realize is, silence is nothing less than the very foundation for listening, thinking and praying. Without adequate silence these basic practices become nearly impossible. I’ll now break down these three benefits in more detail.

1  Silence is the foundation for listening. When we listen we give our full attention to someone. Of course this is done best when no other distraction is competing. This may seem self-evident, but judging from the dearth of silence, we can safely assume that not much real listening is going on.

Yes, we listen at various levels – we can hear someone in the midst of a song, a TV show or a concert, but the depth of understanding is proportionate to our ability to sustain our attention. And yes, there are times the situation doesn’t call for any more than catching the surface message: “Can you pick up milk and eggs on your way home?” But all of us need to be understood at a deeper level; all of us cry out for someone to love us enough to really pay attention and hear us – and not just to the words we say but to why we’re saying them.

Can you imagine the love that would be communicated if someone were to gently take you by the hand and lead you by a quiet stream and sit down and look you in the eyes and sincerely say, “Please tell me what’s really bothering you?” Most would simply burst into tears or flee in terror.

In silence we discipline ourselves to listen, but not only to others. We also need to listen to ourselves and to God. Unless we get quiet we can’t really hear what’s going on in our own minds. Many Christians use the availability of sound to drown out their doubts, their fears, guilt and despair. Unless we acknowledge what’s really going on in our own heads, we will never bring it before the only One who can heal us.

So in this process of listening to others and ourselves, we also learn to listen to God. Obviously this is the most important act of listening. And we do that in several ways: by reading the Word of God, the scriptures; by listening to the Word preached; by listening to the encouragement of a brother or sister in Christ or even by looking into the depths of a starry night — ‘the heavens declare the glory of God . . .’ Silence enables this kind of listening. It speaks healing and wholeness to our shattered souls. We must see silence as our friend.

2  Silence is the foundation for thinking. When we think, we ponder what we have listened to – to the real words of others and to ourselves. And although listening and thinking can happen simultaneously, they’re still separate. What we listen to determines the kind and amount of thinking we will do. Someone who tells us: ‘watch out for that bus!’ does not leave us much time to think. But if someone tells us: ‘beware the wiles of TV!’ we can take time to think about that. It may require reading and research, evaluation and honest reflection of our lifestyle, but again, silence is our friend here. This is especially true when we listen to the Word of God. We call this combination of listening-thinking, meditation.

Now, let’s get some practice. For a moment stop what you’re doing, get alone, turn everything off and read this verse aloud:

For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Now read it again substituting the word ‘us’ with ‘me.’

For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate me from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Finally, read it aloud again, and this time insert the words that describe whatever created thing keeps you from really believing in God’s all-conquering love. It could be a person, a system, a lie or something else — name it!

For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor ___________, shall be able to separate me from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Do you see how powerful this little exercise can be and how impossible it is without the foundation of silence?

3  Silence is the foundation for praying. When we pray, we relate to God what we’re really thinking about. Ultimately we all end up here, because, if we are truly listening and thinking, the silences have a way of faithfully carrying us back to the source and the resource of all things. Prayer is not just some perfunctory exercise; it’s bringing to God our genuine thoughts, the thoughts that truly preoccupy us, distress us, perplex and worry us.

As we become more comfortable with the silences, we learn to safely listen and ponder what’s really going on in us, in others, and in God. When we do that we will naturally want to close the loop with our heavenly Father. This is an ongoing process empowered only by the foundation of silence that should characterize our lives into deeper and deeper waters until finally, we reach the other side of this world. Silence is anything but boring. In the silence we actually regain nothing less than ourselves, others and God himself.

See also the introduction to this category: Lies attacking our self-understanding.