Are you afraid of the silence?
Recently, my random, scattered, painful thoughts decided to muster and attack me in unison. They dragged me, depleted and depressed, into a painful darkness. My mind was rotting under the onslaught. So, I took a walk. But I feared my own belligerent mind. So, I marched to a sermon to soothe and sooth my mind. (Look up “sooth.” I am twisting it into a verb.) I was afraid of the silence; of being alone with my unwanted painful and distressing thoughts. I had become Elijah.
Elijah had done great things for God. He called down fire from God and slayed the false prophets of Baal. Yet, afterward, he ran in fear from Jezebel’s threats. God called him to Mount Horeb, Mount Sinai, where God met with Moses. God sent a strong wind, an earthquake, and a fire. But the Lord was not in the wind, fire, or earthquake. God spoke in a whisper. A still small voice recommissioning Elijah. See 1 Kings 19.
In the silence we can choose to be crushed by our own thoughts, or we can hear the whisper of God. Martyn Lloyd-Jones has famously said: “Have you realized that most of your unhappiness in life is due to the fact that you are listening to yourself instead of talking to yourself?” In the silence we can speak truth to our souls or be crushed by our cares, fears, and anxieties. Christian meditation is seeking God in the silence. It is to sooth your mind. (Did you look it up?) It is slowing down and looking up. It is meeting with God, hearing his whisper, in the silence. It is filling your mind and nurturing your heart with God’s Word, God’s truth, God’s presence, and God’s promises.
Back to sooth. It is an archaic word meaning truth. And truth, it seems, has gone archaic today for most think God’s truth has died. That absence of solid truth fuels our painful thoughts and multiplies our anxieties. Sooth your mind with truth. Soothe your mind with truth. Run into the silence, heed the still, small voice of God, and be at rest. Speak truth to yourself in the silence. It is the balm of Gilead to a troubled mind. Give Christian meditation a try. Reclaim your mind for God.