We all need a little quiet time in our lives but sometimes it can be too quiet.

This past week my wife, Lily, went out of town for a few days to help her mother. That meant I had to fend for myself for four days. I’m not much of a cook so Lily left me with enough leftovers and quick meal options to cover most of my meals. 

She likes to do that so that I don’t have any excuses for going out to eat. She knows I don’t need much of a reason to grab a burger or a pizza from one of my familiar spots. 

And she doesn’t like me spending the money … or maybe it’s that she doesn’t like that I’m eating out without her. 

There is nothing new with this routine, but there’s something different this time. 

It’s way more quiet this time, or perhaps I should say it’s quiet for longer this time. 

You see, any time Lily has gone away for an extended period of time, I’ve been working. Most of my days were spent working at the office. I was out of the house and busy during the day. 

Even my evenings were filled with meetings and events. 

But now that I’m retired, I don’t have an office to go to. I’m just in the house all day long and it’s quiet – too quiet.

Now don’t get me wrong; I don’t mind the quiet. In fact, even when I was working, I needed quiet to work. 

Being blessed with a touch of ADD, I didn’t need anything to distract me when I studied. So quiet was what I looked for.

One time I had a staff member whose office was beside mine. In the mornings when I would be working on a sermon, he would play music. It wasn’t that his music was bad or anything, but he had a woofer that kept pounding the beat. I couldn’t really hear the tune or the instruments, but the constant boom, boom, boom I did hear. 

That was enough to distract me so that I couldn’t focus on what I was studying. I often took my laptop and went into the sanctuary where it was quiet. 

I like quiet and I need quiet. But what I’m finding is that quiet without being highly focussed for long portions of the day is maybe a little too quiet. 

I may have to resort to doing random shopping for things I don’t know I need. Maybe I should start drinking coffee so I can pop into Tim Hortons and grab a cup in a noisy environment. 

Last night I listened to a sermon while I played pool for an hour.

My big fear is that if it’s too quiet for too long I’ll start talking out loud to myself. … I could use different voices and accents and talk about nothing just so that it wouldn’t be too quiet. 

Here’s the thing: Most of us will try to limit the amount of quiet in our lives so we don’t experience too much quiet. But to hear God speak to us we need quiet. In fact, many people don’t experience God in their lives because they are never quiet long enough to really get in touch with Him. Try some quiet time and focus your mind on God. Prepare with reading scripture, journaling your thoughts and prayer. See if God speaks to you out of your quietness.

That Life!

Paul

Question: How could you add a little quiet to your life? Leave your comments and questions below.

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