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As we pulled up to the campsite–a small dirt space encased by jumbo rocks on three sides–the only thing there to greet us besides the cacti was the silence. It was a deafening kind of silence–the type that, at first, your brain doesn’t know what to do with.

This kind of silence hadn’t existed in my life up until this point. 

As we set up the tent, I realized this was the first time in two years I’d taken a real break. A mentor of mine had suggested I go on a retreat nearly a year ago. He told me I would never be able to process all the shifts and changes happening in my life if I didn’t slow down. You cannot hear God leading you if you always arrange for the noise to be louder than Him.

I didn’t listen to that mentor’s suggestion. There was too much pressing all around me. I was convinced the world would surely fall apart if I stepped away for 48-hours. 

But it was my roommate at the time who bought me a plane ticket to Joshua Tree so we could camp out for a few days and I could experience camping in a national park, one of her favorite pastimes.

… 

This time my auto-responder was up. I had no more excuses to dish out. Our campsite was miles and miles into the desert of California, no sign of a single bar of service even if I wanted there to be. 

I was forced to face myself, and the silence was shrill. My mind raced for the first three hours and finally something broke open in me. I unraveled a little and told myself, “Relax. You have nothing to be afraid of.”

I used to be tempted to live a life covered by noise. Even as I prayed in the mornings, I found myself easily distracted by others. Tied to the stimulation was a bigger issue: I was finding validation– in the form of tweets and comments– more than I was finding it in God.

The praise never kept me satisfied. There was a fork in the road: I could either survive by the scraps of validation from fragile humans or feed at the table of God and stay full.

 

 … 

Silence brings to the surface what the noise manages to bury.

The question is: are you ever silent enough to face yourself? To face what you’ve needed to see for such a long time? 

When we talk about rest, it is easy to get this picture in my brain of taking a catnap or finding time to do a cucumber melon face mask. Rest is often categorized by snuggling up on the couch for a Netflix binge or going away on a vacation. But are we really recharging? Do we ever take a break from the noise that is at our fingertips and in our earbuds 24/7? 

 

 … 

By the time night fell in that campground, I was hooked. I was absolutely enamored with the quiet, with the forgetting to check my phone, with the freedom to just be without any noise telling me who or how to be. 

I was reading books by the fire. I was pouring words into my journal. I was laughing and crying and becoming inspired again. Peace met me there in the desert. 

“I don’t want to neglect seasons that grow me down into roots,” I wrote. “I would like to always be building or always be laughing but Ecclesiastes 3 tells me there must also be the tearing down. There must also be weeping.”

There is a time to speak, I read, and a time to keep silence. As I traced those words, I stopped: keep silence. 

The Hebrew word for silence is “chashash.” It means “to be still.” 

Being still is the first step to planting roots deep down into God. 

Solomon goes on to say in Ecclesiastes that we will never control the timing. The purpose of us being here–leading and loving and sharing– is not so we can become good at micro-managing people and noise. We could easily believe that lie, and body-slam every hour into the calendar but that is not the point. We are here to take on more of the person of Jesus, not more of the noise that sings to us about our fragile sense of self-worth.

 

…  

When Jesus talked about the Sabbath— a sacred day of rest in the week— throughout the New Testament, he was very clear in telling people that there was no need to get all legalistic about it. There is no right or wrong. That’s not the point of taking a break. 

The Sabbath isn’t a rule— it’s a chance to reset. A chance to hear your thoughts again and know you’re okay. A chance to come back to yourself and come back to your roots. 

The noise of this world will never able to tell you who you are and the multitudes of purpose you possess within you. Twitter won’t show you that. Instagram won’t reveal it. Amazon won’t deliver it. An empty inbox won’t prove it.

When you take time to rest, you say “yes” to going back to basics— yes to who you were before the race to be “more” began. 

 

 … 

As the bacon sizzled in the frying pan placed above a propane tank, I realized the world had not crumbled as I’d chosen to step away. The more glorious part? If the world did, indeed, crumble then I would be none the wiser out here in the desert. You think you’re going to miss out on everything when you turn off the phone but you don’t end up missing out at all— you gain more than you can imagine. 

For the first time in such a long time, I could be with my thoughts. 

They weren’t frantic. They weren’t berating me to get back to work so I could prove my worth. I breathed in and knew, I’m okay. God is here. 

And I must fight to reclaim this silence in my own life if I ever want to hear His voice clearly. If I can sit in the silence long enough, I will not need the roar of the world to fill my holes. 

If I can dull the roar around me, I can hear what a real roar sounds like. The roar that makes my fears cease. The roar that roots me and makes me braver than I can be on my own.