“In repentance and rest is your salvation,
in solitude and trust is your strength.” Isaiah 30:15

Have you ever stopped to think about how little silence there is in our lives? Almost every second is filled with some form of sound. Even when we find ourselves secluded from society to “get away,” you would likely still be able to hear the hum of traffic, an airplane flying overhead, or the background noise of music in the distance.

Silence is indeed hard to find and there seems to be no escape from noise. But the kind of noise that endangers our spiritual well-being is not the noise we can’t escape but the noise we invite into our lives. Some of us use noise as a way of shutting out loneliness: voices of TV and radio personalities give us the illusion of companionship. Some of us use it as a way of shutting out our own thoughts: other voices and opinions keep us from having to think for ourselves. Some of us use noise as a way of shutting out the voice of God. Constant chatter, even when we’re talking about God, keeps us from hearing what God has to say.

But Jesus, even during His busiest times, made a point of seeking out places of solitude where He could carry on a conversation with God. The Gospels show us several examples. (Mark 1:35, Luke 5:16, Matthew 14:13, John 6:15). Even if we can’t find a place that is perfectly quiet, we need to find a place to quiet our souls (Psalm 131:2), a place where God has our full attention.