You should daydream more
‘But Jesus often withdrew to the wilderness for prayer.’ — Luke 5:16
‘The devil has made it his business to monopolize on three elements: noise, hurry, crowds. He will not allow quietness.’ — Elisabeth Elliot
We’re surrounded by noise all the time.
Screens. Content. Ads. Music. Shows. News. Messages. Calls. Traffic. All creating a constant cacophony day after day, night after night.
We’re constantly stimulated. But instead of trying to reclaim some peace and quiet in our lives, we attempt to calm our frantic minds with even more noise.
We listen to music in the car, on the train or while walking. Some of us clean with a podcast or audiobook on. We eat while watching TV. We can't even wait in a line for 30 seconds without pulling our phones out for a quick scroll.
We’re so rarely left alone with our thoughts.
Maybe that’s why we fill our days with background noise: we don’t actually want to sit in our thoughts.
But I wonder if, as well as distracting us from our thoughts, our fear of silence stops us from listening to God.
If every moment of our day is filled with noise, how can we hear what God is saying?
More than that, the enemy can actually use these distractions to pull us away from God and stop us from listening to Him.
This is what Elisabeth Elliot is talking about in our opening quote:
“The devil has made it his business to monopolize on three elements: noise, hurry, crowds. He will not allow quietness.”
What’s so special about silence?
When I think of the times I’ve seen God teaching me something, it has been in the still, quiet moments while walking the dog, making my coffee or sitting in prayer and reflection.
Of course, He is the King of creation, and so He can speak to me any time, any place and in any circumstances.
But I acknowledge that I’m a terrible listener.
I want to keep going my way, assume that I’m pleasing God and that everything I do is good and right. And when I surround myself with distractions, I don’t have space to reflect.
So I need to pause, come back to God’s Word, listen to Him and let His Spirit work in my heart.
When we allow our minds to wander or daydream, we give ourselves space to meditate on God, search our hearts and consider whether our lives are glorifying Him.
We can see what this can look like in Jesus’ life. Even though He lived perfectly, and didn’t need the Father's forgiveness or correction, He frequently withdrew to solitary places early in the morning to spend time with the Father.
How can we seek and find silence again?
Quietening your life isn’t another thing you have to add into your week for God to speak to you.
It’s simply about freeing up more space to come and listen to Him each day—choosing to meet with Him in the moments we so often choose to fill with noise instead.
For me, this has looked like walking without headphones, making the dinner in silence and simply reducing the noise and stimuli in my day.
These are the times when I’ve processed what the Spirit has been working on in my heart, sins I need to confess, and truths about God that amaze me.
Of course, seeking quiet isn’t the only way to hear from God. He meets and speaks with His people through Sunday sermons, weekly small groups, daily quiet times, the words of a friend, and so much more.
But our world is overwhelmingly loud, and so we’ve built habits of distraction which numb us to the noise and, in so doing, close off our minds from gazing on heavenly things (Colossians 3:2).
But as we strip these barriers away, we can finally enjoy space to rest in His presence, recall His words and reflect on all that He has been teaching us.
This week, try one of these ways of pausing and listening to God:
Walk somewhere every day without listening to anything, and let your mind wander back into wonder of God again.
After you’ve spent time in God’s Word, just sit in silence for five minutes. Put a timer on and simply consider what you’ve read.
Do something you’d normally do every day, but without having anything on in the background, and see what you find yourself meditating on.
My prayer is that, as you come back into a quiet place, you’ll enjoy spending more time fixing your eyes on Jesus, praising Him and listening to Him.
Love,
Ruth