Silence.

There is nothing more avoided, underappreciated, or ignored. Well, maybe a few other things but, silence is definitely on the short list. There are very few places in our world where you can retreat to in order to enjoy the serenity of silence. We live our lives with so much background 

noise that we rarely get a chance to really sit in silence. We have become accustomed to always having sometime making noise around us. There’s so much noise around us that its even hard to sleep without something making some kind of steady noise to cover up the other noise (and those white noise machines/apps truly are a gift from God).

Why So Much Noise?

Some of the noise around us is unavoidable. The wail of a siren, the hammering and banging of construction, that ever constant 60 cycle hum that we’ve grown so used to. There are other times though that we seek out noise for our own reason. There are times that listening to music helps us focus on a task and stave off the boredom. Ask anyone that exercises regularly about the need for some good work-out music. Sometimes we seek noise out because we have a longing to be entertained. Personally, I can’t even sit at home and eat a meal without a show on TV or a video playing. Often times it’s just because we don’t want to deal with life. The noise we let into our lives helps to distract us from dealing with the problems that we face.

Our Favorite drug

Sound can be therapeutic. Music therapy is a big topic in our day and age and the benefits are excellent. There are times when we need something to distract us from the thoughts and anxieties that would overtake us. This is good, this is beneficial. However, sometimes we use noise as a drug. We inject it into ourselves to mask the pain of working through our problems. There are times when we need to think through our difficulties, face our challenges head on, but instead, we run and hide in a cocoon of sound that only buries us deeper instead of digging us out. We need an intervention.

Seeking Silence

When’s the last time you drove your car from one place to the next without having the radio on? When’s the last time you sat outside on a quiet night and listened to the chirps and calls of the insects and animals all singing in harmony? What about the last time you sat alone in a room and dealt with the thoughts in your heads? (all of which is really difficult to do when there are children in the picture, which should drive the value of silence even higher) We aren’t created to be masked in sound 24/7. We are created for the silent times as much as the noisy ones. We should seek out those times of silent contemplation in our lives. Let silence be something you grapple with on a regular basis. Even if only for a few minutes.

Wanna read more? Check this post out here!