We live in a very wordy world.
If you think about it, words are literally everywhere.
They are written, spoken, sung and read.
We are inundated by them.
I never really thought about it until this January when all of a sudden I struggled to read.
Words on pages and the computer screen became a challenge for me.
Head aches, spinning rooms and eye strains forced me to close my books.
I tried not to read.
But the problem is: words are everywhere,
and reading is what I do.
Turns out, my problem was a simple little fix:
Ahhh … Words!!
Now that I can see again, I’m wondering if maybe I should go back to not seeing.
Because words are everywhere –
and maybe all those words are just noise.
Word pollution.
Our minds are filled to the brim with words, and most of them aren’t doing us any good. So, how about a fast from words? Less coming in might mean less swirling around. Less confusion. Less distraction.
Many of us don’t know what to do with silence. It tortures us. Left only to the noise in our head, we want to run from that which surfaces – from our battles from within.
But what if we didn’t run this time?
What if we didn’t turn on the radio, open our computers, or read a quick devo. to fill our void?
What if we let silence find its way – do its work – unravel us.
Might we find, on the other side of this deafening madness, the presence of God?
Not words, but peace. Quiet assurance that the invisible is real – that God is indeed with{in} us.
I guess we won’t know until we try.
We need to find God, and he cannot be found in noise and restlessness. God is the friend of silence. See how nature — trees, flowers, grass — grows in silence; see the stars, the moon and the sun, how they move in silence. We need silence to be able to touch souls. –Mother Teresa
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