Silence and Solitude

Speaker: Tyler McKenzie

Week Five Devotional

By Mike Mihalyov

My life is loud.

As my day starts, the kids are there early in the morning and either need my attention getting ready for school, or in discipline as I try to raise kids that don’t suck as people later in life. I go to work and have meetings and people to talk to. I race through carpool to make it home for dinner, family time, the bedtime routine, and try to coherently explain to my wife how my day was before sleeping and waking up to do it all over again the next day. That’s my life. 

Our lives are filled with things clamoring for attention. We all have family dynamics. We all have work drama. We all have phones to scroll through, friendships to juggle, evening commitments, and the feeling that no matter what we do there is never enough time to balance everything or do everything well. And even knowing this, we continue to add MORE to our schedules. The pace is unsustainable. We are left feeling weary, burned out, and like we have nothing left to give. What do we do with relentless, unsustainable busyness?

Jesus was said by many to be the wisest person to ever live. Even if you don’t believe everything about Jesus, most people agree that he was a good person and did great things while he was alive. One of these things was displaying how to have silence and solitude in his life. There are stories all through Jesus’s life about how he would remove himself from his followers (and even the people closest to him) to spend time by himself. He would use this time to think about decisions, pray, work through his emotions, and spend time with God.

Reflection:

• What would focusing on adding moments of silence and solitude look like in your life this year? This week? Today?
• What are one or two ways you could focus on spending time by yourself to think about decisions and to work through your emotions?
• If you are a Jesus follower, to pray and just be still with God? Make this a priority and it just might change your life.

Creating a Rhythm of Silence and Solitude:

Last year, I made the choice to try to carve out more moments of silence and solitude each day to see if that helped with the constant feeling of being overwhelmed.

For me this looked like two simple changes to my daily routine:

• First, I now wake up before the kids, not with or after the kids. This helps me think, pray, and prepare for my day as a human FIRST before I am a husband, father, and pastor.
• Second, I schedule time in my daily calendar at work just for myself to go somewhere quiet. This helps me recalibrate my attitude and assess and adjust my emotions if needed.

These two simple rhythms have been life changing as I am more patient, handle my emotions better, and regain perspective easier. I’m FAR from perfect, but it has helped. 

____________

Your Turn:

This week, I challenge you to:

• Start your day with ten minutes of silence and solitude. If that means waking up before the kids, or if it means spending your first waking minutes with silence instead of the latest and greatest TikToks, just see what happens if you try it. You might like it. Invite the Lord into your day ahead.
• Pause sometime during your day to check in with yourself and with the Lord. Maybe while at a stoplight, before going to your next meeting, or in the carpool line. Reflect with Him on how your day is going.