I’ve always enjoyed silence. Early on, God told Isaiah, “In quietness . . . shall be your strength” (Isaiah 30:15). Jesus had a pattern of rising early to enjoy the stillness of the morning and occasionally retired to the “mountain to pray, and continued all night in prayer to God” (Luke 6:12). Living in a world of noise, I am finding silence more and more difficult to find. Indeed, my younger friends no little about a world that includes silence. Writing what he calls a, “faith-based theology of technology” Archibald Hart says, “Studies have shown that the average person today, surrounded by the cyber world, can only bear about fifteen seconds of silence” (The Digital Invasion). How sad! While I have made a living out of words, spoken and written, I treasure the quiet, wordless, times. I guess some of those young friends, would refer to me as a “throwback,” but not everything in the past is bad. Without periods of silence, one tends to burn-out on noise. Mary Nelson Keithahn has written a moving verse, “Come away with me to a quiet place, apart from the world with its frantic pace, to pray, reflect, and seek God’s grace. Come away with me. Come away.” Since the noise around me often needs a silence break, I treasure the times away.
More from Dr. Dan at www.discipleallnations.org/blog.
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