Afraid of the Quiet
LETTER BY BRIAN MORYKON
A popular movie series is based on alien monsters who hunt what they can hear. Survival depends on staying quiet at all costs.
Many of us live an inverted version of this. We’re afraid of the monsters inside of us that may appear if we become quiet. So we stay noisy, if not through words, at least though busyness or distraction.
Or maybe we’re afraid that God has a monstrous side as well. This is tricky to recognize because we may sincerely want to believe that God is good and kind and always glad to see us. But childhoods aren’t perfect and life can be brutal, so our brains and bodies can form and harbor distorted images of God. When we feel resistance to spending time with God, it’s good to examine in that moment what our image of God is.
There are other fears that stop us from spending extended time alone with God. Richard Foster outlines some of them in this article, as well as practical steps for overcoming them.
On the Friends in Formation podcast this week, Richella Parham confessed her past aversion to solitude and silence. “I was afraid God might say to me, ‘You idiot, aren’t you ever going to get this right?’ I had to learn God’s voice was loving and drawing… not one of a disappointed deity or disapproving father.”
You see this distortion of God’s image at work in the prodigal son’s elder brother. He’s furious that his father would welcome home with a feast such a derelict son. “All these years I’ve been slaving for you… Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends.”
Jesus told this famous parable to the teachers and scribes accusing him of welcoming sinners. The father’s response to the elder brother is a profound revelation of God’s love for these legalists: “You are always with me, and everything I have is yours.”
The invitation is there also for us to draw near to the Father, to set aside time alone with the Trinity, to push past the fear of what may await us in the quiet and believe that God delights to meet us there. Even if our time in solitude and silence is unremarkable — and it often is — God is present and will be at work in us.
Brian Morykon
Director of Communications
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