“What kind of monster rides in their car in SILENCE?”, I overheard myself say in a processing session with some friends in the midst of yet another round of giving online dating a shot.

Both of their eyes widened, they looked at each other and looked me straight in the eye and with undeserving grace said, “Oh… well, we do”.

I honestly could not believe it. I always have something going in my car. And I mean always. Even when there is someone else riding along, I have to have music going in the background because it’s just too darn quiet. “Sorry, can we hold on just a second? I need to put on some music or I’ll go nuts.”

I have always been surrounded by noise. My parents have owned a little bakery in my hometown for as long as I have been alive. From the time I was a baby, I grew up in the midst of roaring ovens, beeping timers, rattling mixers, banging dishes, and earnest conversation. Sometimes after church on Sundays, my dad and I would stop by to grab something or so he could do a quick task and I remember being freaked out by the silent contrast of the empty building without its regular hubbub.  

I remember coming home from school when I was a bit older and grabbing my blanket and stuffed animal, crawling up on the stacks of 50-pound flour bags and taking a nap in the heart of all of the hustle and bustle that comes with the place that is the heartbeat of that small town.

Even as a teenager, when I was home alone, I was never in the quiet. At the very least, the TV would always be on in the background or music would be playing to alleviate the painful dread that the silence was for me, a habit I’ve kept up with to this day.

Constant stimulus pouring into my eardrums and making its way to my brain calling for me to avoid what really makes me uncomfortable – being alone with my own thoughts.

And yet, the words of my friends and the Word of God in Psalm 46:10 (Be still and know that I am God) coupled with the book I am currently reading have pushed me to step outside of my comfort zone and be still in the silence, in the presence of God.

So one day this week I decided I would ride my whole 35-minute commute in silence. I got in my car, clicked the radio off, and basically said, “Okay God, let’s do this.”, fully expecting to have some sort of magical revelation.

And lo and behold, descending from the heavens above came…

Nothing.

And truly I mean nothing. I cannot even tell you now what I thought about and prayed about along the way.

But I had totally missed the point.

Being still isn’t about waiting for God to pour out all of the answers to my problems or some great revelation or mystery of the earth.

Being still is about relationship. God desires a deep, intimate relationship with us. He wants the kind of comfortability in our relationship with Him where we set aside time to simply be in His presence and turn our faces away from everything else vying for our attention and towards His face.

He wants that place to become our comfort zone. The place we retreat to when we’ve been overwhelmed by the world and all of its constant stimuli, just as Jesus did when He walked this earth.

When can you set aside time to just “be still” in the presence of your Savior? I can’t promise you’ll get all the answers you need in that moment, but what I can promise is that time spent with your Creator will embolden you to live a life of deep faith and trust in the One who created, redeemed and sustains you.