Serenity in Silence

I actually very much appreciated Mr. Hanson's message in that the one he gave about a month ago partially inspired the message I'm going to give today. It kind of got me thinking a little bit about it, and Part 2 actually helped reinforce the concepts, and I think you'll find that they dovetail fairly well together today. I'd like to start with a show of hands. Don't put your hand up just yet, but with a show of hands. Always. There's always at least one in the room. How many of you believe that you could sit silently in a room for 30 minutes?

Hold on. Let me clarify a couple other things. Before you answer, that means no phone, no human interaction, no getting up and milling around, you have to remain seated 30 minutes alone with your thoughts in silence. Quick show of hands. How many think you could make 30 minutes? I have a vast majority of the room. All right, go ahead and put your hands down. It might surprise you to learn that a significant portion of the human population cannot. The significant portion of a human population cannot. And for those who can, it is not without a great deal of difficulty and unpleasantness.

In fact, studies that have tested this, the primary description of individuals who have completed it, was that was difficult and unpleasant. Just to sit alone with their thoughts for a period of time. It's not a modern problem. It's not a modern problem, actually. As far back as the mid-1600s, Blaise Pascal, who was a noted French inventor and physicist, he wrote the following. He said, all of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone. That was Blaise Pascal's opinion.

I'm not sure I agree with his assertion in that that's the stem of all of humanity's problems, but it illustrates this isn't a new issue. This is not something recent. This is not something driven solely by technology, though I would argue that technology has certainly exacerbated the problem in our modern world today, as this world has such a frenetic pace. Again, Mr. Hansen gave the sermon a few weeks back that touched on some of these challenges relating to digital devices. In part, that really got me thinking a little bit about this concept on the whole.

I touched on it in the last sermon I gave locally with regards to wisdom and where we get wisdom and those connections that help drive wisdom and human interaction, but I want to move into a facet of this today that impacts all of us, whether we realize it or not. Each and every one of us live in a society today that is awash with constant stimulation. It is available and ready for us in whatever methodology we so choose.

Again, Mr. Hansen's message today went into a number of things, but we are surrounded by televisions. We're surrounded by thousands of channels. If you don't like what's on one channel, change a channel to something else. You don't like that? Well, you got 998 more to choose from.

Just flip, flip, flip, flip, flip, flip, flip, flip, flip, flip, flip through any channel that you want to go through. We have streaming video on demand. You don't like what's on TV? Fine. Watch whatever you want. Whenever you want to watch it. It's on demand. It's streaming. Watch it whenever. We're surrounded by commercials, advertisements. Thanks a lot, Prime. Used to be no ads. Now it's ads. We're surrounded by texts, notifications, our phones buzz and beep, our watches buzz and beep, our cars buzz and beep. And if you are an early adopter in AR VR headsets, your phone or your eyeglasses buzz and beep.

They have haptics built into your eyeglass frames so that you know when you've received a text. Because your glasses go zzzz. Yeah. I don't think I'll be getting those personally. I got enough buzzing and beeping going on in my life. I don't need my eyeglasses rattling off my head. The first iPhone, the first iPhone, how many of you remember the very first iPhone? I'll give you two.

Was released in 2007. Every other iPhone model has and other smartphone models have followed at an absolute breakneck pace. Younger members of Generation Z and the members of Generation Alpha have grown up in a world in which smartphones were the norm. They've never known anything different. Those in these two generations. You give them a dial rotary phone and they don't know what to do with it.

It's humorous to watch on the internet. Hand them this phone and say, call somebody. It's like, what could do with this? The statistics, as Mr. Hanson mentioned in his message, of phone addiction in younger generations is staggering. Before the pandemic, the prevalence of smartphone addiction in children was between 5 and 50%. This is pre-pandemic. 2018-19, early parts of 2020 when these studies had been done. One dependency increased significantly during the pandemic. Everything that was being done was being done on our phones or being done on our computers. And so now, as they've done these studies, two-thirds of teenagers now report that they spend between 4 and 9 hours each day on their smartphone.

Between 4 and 9 hours on their smartphones. One in three teenagers will actually admit that they are addicted to their phones. But if you've ever worked with addicts, one of the most difficult issues is getting them to admit it in the first place. Two-thirds of teenagers stated that they feel anxious when they do not have their phones in their hands. And one-third admitted that not only do they feel anxious, they feel stressed out when they don't have their phone. Folks, that is classic withdrawal symptoms. Which means that the actual number of individuals that are addicted to their phones in these younger generations is probably closer to two-thirds.

Those that are feeling the anxiousness and the stress from not having it in their hands. Now, unfortunately, it's not an issue that is confined only to youth. Over 75% of Americans own a smartphone, and 47% of them admit that they are addicted to their phones. The average American checks their phone every 12 minutes. I felt like 12 minutes was a little generous, actually. Hello, my name is Ben, and I'm a phonoholic. What blows me away about this, though, is that that doesn't even take into account internet usage.

It doesn't take into account personal computers, televisions, video game consoles. This is only one facet of this device issue that Mr. Hansen spoke to today when we think about the stimulation that is necessary in our lives. That brings me back to my original question. Could you sit silently in a room alone with your thoughts for 30 minutes? Now, not in a situation of, well, I can do anything for 30 minutes.

Have you done it recently? Have you tried it? I'd be interested for you to try this next week and report back how it went. Came across a fascinating study that was the other aspect of inspiration in this in a book that I was reading recently, and it really got me thinking about this concept as it relates to our personal lives and the importance of this quiet time in our lives.

In 2014, a psychology researcher by the name of Tim Wilson did a study on students at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. In the study, what they did was exactly what I've described to you in my initial question. They had a bare room on campus with a single solitary chair in its center. The rules were simple. The students came in. They could not get out of the chair at any point, so there was no pacing, no walking around in the room, no fidgeting.

They had to sit still in this chair. They could not talk, and they could not otherwise distract themselves with a phone or any other device. They had to sit quietly for 6 to 15 minutes. At least 6 minutes, the goal being 15.

The first study, which was ultimately replicated 10 additional times with different variables, illustrated the students that were polled after the testing on average absolutely did not enjoy the experience. They claimed, again, as I mentioned earlier, that the experience was difficult, that it was unpleasant. So the researchers got to thinking about it. Well, maybe it's the setting. Maybe the room is just too sterile. Coming in and sitting in this room, in this chair in the middle of the room, all these eyes watching them through the one-way mirror, maybe that's just really unpleasant for them.

So they said, let's have them do it at home. Let's have them do it someplace familiar, someplace comfortable. And so the majority of participants that did it at home reported getting up before the 15 minutes were up. They didn't make it 15 minutes. Or they reported checking their phones within that 15-minute period, therefore invalidating their result. The vast majority could not complete 15 minutes sitting quietly with nothing else taking place. They decided, well, maybe this is just a student thing. Maybe college students are just weird. Maybe we should try a wider group of people.

So they opened up and got a much larger testing group. They ran it between ages 18 to 77. Age demographics, wealth, socioeconomic status, very wide, very varied, so that it was not a situation where they were checking in different results. And it was a similar result. They couldn't sit for that 15-minute time period quietly alone with their thoughts.

The majority of participants actually characterized the overall experience as negative, that it was not a positive experience for them and did not complete the time. This is where it got interesting. The researchers wondered whether it was the absence of stimulus that was the problem.

It was obvious that they preferred a positive stimulus. It was obvious they wanted to get up and do something. They wanted to take out their phone. They wanted to do this. They said, I wonder if they prefer a negative stimulus over the absence of stimulus. And so what they did was they brought a group of individuals in. They wired them up to a device and they electro-shocked them.

Now bear with me for a minute. Of those group of individuals who came in, a small population of those individuals said, hey, that shock is really unpleasant. I really don't like that, actually. And in fact, on their ratings, they said it was so unpleasant, I'd be willing to pay you money to never feel it again. And they said, perfect. We have our sample. And so they took those individuals who said they would rather pay money than receive an electrical shock. They stuck them in the room inside of a chair with the same rules, except this time, if they desired, they could administer this electric shock to themselves.

I didn't write the study. I'm just telling you what they did. This is where it got fascinating. They were asked to sit quietly for 15 minutes with no other external stimuli except for this electric shock for 6 to 15 minutes. And to their surprise, the researchers found that the participants showed a preference to negative stimuli, choosing to shock themselves rather than sit quietly with their own thoughts. This was gender dependent.

12 of 18 men, sorry, gentlemen, 67% of men administered 4 shocks in that 15 minute period to themselves on average, and 6 of 24 women, 25%, administered varying levels of shocks to pass the time. But what got me from the book I was reading was one outlier, one outlier whose data they did not include in the report of the study outside of reporting it as an outlier, who chose to shock himself 190 times in 15 minutes.

Instead of spending quiet time alone with his thoughts, he said, no, sir, I'm going to shock myself 190 times. I don't know, I'm just, again, reporting the study that I came across. The experiment was replicated numerous times and tried to select for different personality types and demographics. Each time, similar results were found. People prefer to do an unpleasant activity rather than no activity at all. Why is that? Why is this?

Pascal theorized that man cannot sit alone quietly with his thoughts because without entertainment, without distraction, without diversion, man would be forced to be alone with the inevitable truth of his existence. In Pascal's words, and in his own word, that truth was that life is tough. Man is meant to suffer. He concluded man is just simply bound to be miserable.

Now, enough with old pessimistic Pascal over here, but his observation does beg a question. Do we, as humans, avoid times of silent, contemplative thought due to an innate dislike of what we're going to think about? What our inner monologue is going to bring to our minds? Where our thoughts might go in that quiet 30-minute time period? And as a result, then, do we prefer to fill our time with entertainment? Do we prefer to fill it with notifications and the like in order to prevent these times of silent contemplation? Does the chaos of today's modern world and modern society make it even more difficult for us to find these times to sit and have quiet contemplation? I'd like to explore this concept a little more fully today and to make the case for the importance of this stillness in each of our lives. The title of this split sermon today is Serenity in Silence. With the time left, I'd like to explore this concept more fully. One of the observations that one of the researchers made that conducted the experiment was that the individuals who went through this process claimed that being alone with their thoughts was unpleasant and difficult. We've mentioned that a couple of times. Why do we suppose that is? Why is it that being alone with thoughts might be unpleasant and difficult? You may be aware, but each and every one of us has what's known as an inner voice or inner monologue. The inner monologue that each of us have, interestingly enough, according to psychologists, manifests itself differently in different people. For about 30-50% of the population, they actually experience a voice in the sense that they hear and understand and can discuss with. 30-50% of the population. The rest, anywhere from 50-70% see things in images and pictures instead. They may see things with intense see or feel, intense feelings or senses, while others may have an awareness of thought but without the accompanying images. We realize our brain is incredibly complex and it is a magnificent creation. But for 30-50% of the population, when they put them under MRI, they experience an activation in the left inferior frontal cortex when they are sitting quietly alone contemplating their thoughts. What's interesting about the left inferior frontal cortex is that is the place in our brain in which speech takes place. These individuals are very much having conversations with themselves. They've determined in this study that it is functional, so it's actually not a dysfunction. They've determined that this particular inner monologue is used in encoding and working memory. It's present in individuals with no signs whatsoever of mental disorder, so in that sense it's a perfectly functioning, normal aspect of the human brain that about 30-50% of people experience. However, studies have also been shown that those that do experience this inner monologue in a number of them, this inner monologue takes the form of a critic. That critic's voice in those who have reported this is corrosive, it's toxic, it belittles them. As a result, these individuals experience a very specific internal voice and monologue that can be very difficult to turn off. It can be very difficult for people to not put a lot of focus and time and thought into what it is that that critical voice has to say. It's believed this particular critical inner voice comes from childhood trauma, comes from dysfunction, comes from anxiety. Because this voice can be so hypercritical in some, many people that experience that version of this inner monologue and this inner voice actually will describe being alone with their thoughts as terrifying. That they would rather do anything else because the second that the input stops, that's when the criticism starts. That voice kicks in.

Individuals in this place can develop what is known as autophobia, which is a fear of being alone. It's a fear of being alone. We are not our thoughts. We're actually in control of our thoughts. It may not seem that way sometimes, but we are. We're almost like a third-party observer of our thoughts, so to speak. Let's begin today by turning over to 2 Corinthians 10.

2 Corinthians 10. The Apostle Paul talked in a number of places about the weapons of our spiritual warfare. He spoke to the various things and the employment of these spiritual weapons as we wage this spiritual war that all of us are in the midst of. 2 Corinthians 10, and we're going to go ahead and pick it up in verse 4. 2 Corinthians 10 and verse 4, we see him address this idea and this concept of this spiritual warfare.

And ultimately, where these weapons come from? Where these weapons come from? 2 Corinthians 10 and verse 4, it says, For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal. They're not the weapons of this world. They're not the weapons of this world. They're not the swords and the guns and the whatever else. They're not carnal weapons. They're mighty in God for pulling down strongholds. They are able to tear down the places in which these ideas, this critical voice, these various things live, so to speak. Verse 5, casting down arguments in every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ and being ready to punish all disobedience when your obedience is fulfilled.

We tend to think, I think when we look at this passage and we think about these particular arguments, we tend to think of them as being against the arguments in the world around us today that are anti-God. That's certainly an aspect, certainly an interpretation of this, those arguments that then exalt themselves against God, the devices of Satan in these very big, very societal scopes.

But what about the war that's taking place in each and every one of us? The individual strongholds and the thoughts and the feelings that we have. Do we take those thoughts into captivity? Do we seize? Do we detain each of those thoughts, so to speak? We think about the concept of captivity. Do we detain those thoughts? Do we question them before we release them, so to speak? Do we detain those thoughts? Do we question them before we let them go? Is that inner critic, that inner monologue that so many people, 30 to 50% in this room statistically, experience this inner monologue, this inner voice?

Whether you're as critical as another ballgame, but you experience this inner monologue and this inner voice. Is that inner critic and the things that it says actually right? Do we take the time to stop and take captive those thoughts, question them, and say, is this true?

Or is it a falsehood? Do we take that time? Rarely is a person a complete failure. There's usually some parts missing. I'm kidding. But rarely is a person a complete failure. Rarely is a person stupid or worthless or any of the other things that those inner voices can scream at people. As Paul encouraged us in Philippians 4 and verse 8, we have to recognize these things are simply not true. They're not praiseworthy. They're not of good report. It's not noble.

It's not just. And as a result, it needs to be detained. It needs to be questioned. And it needs to be rejected as falsehood. And we are in control of that process. We can take those thoughts captive. We can take those things and question them. If you're someone who experiences these things, if you are one of the 30 to 50 percent of the human population who experiences this inner monologue that could potentially be critical, sitting alone with your thoughts for about 30 minutes doesn't sound too pleasant, does it?

Would you submit yourself to 30 minutes if someone's screaming at you and telling you how horrible and worthless you are in person? Of course not. Get up and walk away. We're not going to do that.

But if you're sitting alone with only your thoughts for 30 minutes, it doesn't sound like an enjoyable time at all. So in that circumstance, yeah, digital medication. When we look in the society around us today, we can see how someone might turn to that. See how someone might end up ultimately not wanting to listen to that voice.

And so they numb it. They make it go away through entertainment. They make it go away through a constant stream of input that prevents that voice and the thoughts from being able to come out. But brethren, there can be a certain serenity in silence. Each of us are capable of experiencing serenity, peace, calm in silence, absence of mental stress, absence of anxiety, if—and this is a big if—if we focus those thoughts on the right things during those times of silence.

We often recognize that there are four big spiritual power tools as part of the Christian life. We talk a lot about prayer and study. We talk quite a bit about the importance of fasting when it comes to humbling oneself, when it comes to seeking God's will, though I would suppose that that particular power tool is one that gets used probably a lot less often, even though we recognize how well it can work. But I wonder sometimes whether meditation as a spiritual discipline is similar. Whether or not we recognize that it is something important, we recognize that it is something that we should do with regularity, but whether it doesn't get used maybe as often as it probably should. Meditation in the Christian context is defined as thinking deeply or carefully about something. Very simple. Meditation in the Christian context is defined as thinking deeply or carefully about something. What makes it challenging is that meditation is also known in a different discipline and in a different way as something very different. I'd like to take a second and just contrast those real fast. Meditation in a Christian context is very different than meditation in Eastern religion. Transcendental meditation that you might hear about, or meditative breathing that takes place in the practices of Buddhism or Taoism or Hinduism and some of the like of these Eastern religions. In those practices, when it comes to meditative breathing, when it comes to transcendent and dental meditation, the goal is to achieve a certain level of mental concentration, a certain blackness and stillness of mind that is intended to lead to spiritual enlightenment or what is known in Buddhism as nirvana.

Not the band, but the state. In Taoist practice, meditation has no aim. It has no aim. Let it take you where it will is the idea of Taoist practice. It's intended to allow the mind to harmonize with the Tao, the natural lessons of the universe. In Hindu practice, meditation is intended to liberate the soul from the cycle of reincarnation and achieve highest good. All three of those are not acceptable. That is not what God means when he talks about meditation in a Christian context.

Let's go to the book of Psalms. Let's take a look at what it is that he does mean. Let's take a look at what he does mean. Psalm 1, David had quite a bit to say about the importance of meditation, about the importance of its practice. Psalm 1, we'll pick it up in verse 1. Even though this is an Old Testament context, it is something to consider as far as Christians in the use of this very important spiritual tool.

Psalm 1 and verse 1, David writes the following. He says, So David speaks to the blessings which come from a man who walks in the counsel of the godly. Think about that being those who are yielding themselves to God and to his way. So we're not walking in the counsel and in the worldliness or the wisdom of the world. But we're walking in the counsel and the wisdom of the godly. He talks of the individual who is not standing in the path, who is not walking along that path of the sinner, or sitting in the seat of the scornful, the chatterer or the scoffer.

He says the man who is blessed is the one who delights in the law of God. That man doesn't see the law of God as a limitation. He doesn't see it as something that's restrictive. He doesn't see it as something that's a net negative. He doesn't see the lights in it. And it's in that law, David says, that this man meditates day and night. The word meditate here is the Hebrew chagah, and it means to mutter, to coup, to speak, or to proclaim.

Now, I don't know what that looks like if you're cooing, necessarily. But the idea here being that its implication in this particular usage and passage is the one who meditates upon the law of God is the one who ponders it by talking to himself as he ponders. That's the kind of the context to this in the process. So you're thinking about it, you're talking about it, you're perhaps asking questions. One might even say maybe this is prayerful meditation, you might say. If you wanted to characterize it in that fashion, this is prayerful meditation.

This man that is described by David in Psalm 1 is thinking on God's law. He's considering God's law. He's thinking about how it informs his life. Verse 3 goes on that that man would be like a tree planted by the rivers of water.

They would be fruitful. Their leaf would never wither, and whatever they do will prosper. It continues, the passage goes on, by contrasting the behavior of those that do not. In many of the Psalms and many of the Proverbs, you see both the positive and then you see the opposite to that. What happens when you do and what happens when you don't says they will not be blessed. They will not walk in the counsel of the godly. They'll walk in the counsel of the ungodly. They'll stand by in an implication, walk in the path of the sinner.

They'll sit in the seat of the scornful. They'll sit right alongside and participate with the scoffers in the mockers. It says their delight is not in the law of God. They do not delight in God's law, and they would not meditate on it. The opposite of these things says those will be like chaff which the wind blows away, and they will not stand in the judgment nor in the congregation of the righteous. So there are dire consequences in place for this. There are dire consequences in place for this.

Compare this to Psalm 119. Let's go ahead and turn over to Psalm 119. Psalm 119, we'll pick it up in verse 97. Put this as our focus scripture here for this week. Psalm 119, we'll pick it up in verse 97. Psalm 119, it says, So David extols the law of God. He extols that meditation. This time the word in Hebrew is sicha, which is a thoughtful contemplation, or sometimes it's defined as a wisdom discourse. Strong says it's devotional thought. Strong's Concordance talks about how it's devotional thought. It's this act of giving considerable thought about a person or a subject.

And so this person is taking the law of God and they are giving considerable thought about it. They're thinking about how it impacts their life. They're focusing on what their response to that should look like.

What David says here is that the law of God was his deep, introspective contemplation throughout the day.

It said God's word made him wiser than his foes, than his teachers, for he meditated contemplatively upon the testimonies of the Lord.

So, scripturally, we see meditation is not the emptying of one's mind.

Eastern meditation teaches that in order to properly meditate, you must empty your mind and allow the universe, so to speak, or the Tao, or whatever it may be, to lead you in whatever direction you wish to go.

Instead, what we see is that the Christian concept of meditation is a filling of one's mind with something infinitely more important, with the law and the word of God.

Psalms also describes that we should meditate on God's unfailing love, that we should meditate on his works and his mighty deeds, on his precepts and his ways, and upon his promises.

Brethren, do you make time to sit quietly, in contemplation, on God's law, on his way, without the television going in the background, without the radio, without earbuds, without any of those things?

Do you take the time to just sit and contemplate?

Philippians 4, verse 8. Philippians 4 and verse 8.

Philippians 4 and verse 8. We referenced it earlier about the captive thoughts that we have at times, or the thoughts we should rather take captive.

But Philippians 4 and verse 8, the Apostle Paul advises the things that we should meditate on.

He says there's all sorts of things that we should meditate on.

In his writings, and in 1 Timothy 4 and verse 15, what we have captured are some of the latest, most recent writings on the concept of meditation and Scripture.

These are the last couple of references that we have to the Word and to the concept in the Bible.

It says in Philippians 4 and verse 8, he says, Whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report.

It says, if there is any virtue, if there is anything praiseworthy, it says meditate on these things.

The things which you learned and received and heard and saw in me, Paul writes to them in his example, he says, These do, and the God of peace will be with you.

Again, that peace, that calmness, that serenity, so to speak.

It says the word ultimately that is used here in this particular section is logizomai, which means to reckon, to calculate, to count, or to consider or ponder.

So it's a wide use, it's got a lot of different usage, but there is an idea of pondering and considering built into this concept that we should be pondering these things.

We should be thinking and considering on these things.

That which is true and noble and just, pure and lovely, of good report, virtue, virtuous, praiseworthy.

We should be meditating on these things. We should be counting over them in our minds, so to speak, as this word, logizomai, references.

We should be counting over them as they correspond to God and to the promises that He has given us.

Brother, our thoughts and our meditations should not be perseverating on things that don't fit in these categories.

And I know that's easier said than done. I know that. All too well, I know that. It's easier said than done.

But it should be a signal to us that something is out of balance if these things cannot be taken captive.

And if there is perseveration on these ideas, something is out of balance. And that could be medically, it could be spiritually, it could be a number of things.

But things such as fear, anger, bitterness, despair, falsehoods.

These are the types of thoughts that we desperately need to work to capture in our minds, to take them captive.

To be able to ultimately, through taking these captive, experience the peace of God.

In fact, the passage just before this in Philippians 4 and verse 6 speaks to this. It speaks to this idea.

Philippians 4 and verse 6 says, Be anxious for nothing.

Again, I know that's easier said than done.

Be anxious for nothing but in everything by prayer and supplication.

With thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. With thankfulness in our hearts.

Make our requests be known to God.

And it says in verse 7, the peace of God, that calmness, that antithesis to anxiety in that sense.

This peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds through Christ Jesus.

If we take the time to sit and think and ponder upon the depths of God's mercy, the depths of God's love for us, His fairness and His equity that He hasn't just hit the smite button on us based on our behavior over the years. God just, you know, there's an old far side like that. God's finger, guy walking down the side, maybe you've seen it.

Guy walking down the sidewalk, there's a giant grand piano hanging from a rope, and God's hovering over the smite button on His keyboard.

He hasn't hit that smite button. I mean, think about that fairness, that equity, that love, that mercy, that grace.

Think about His care. Think about His protection.

These things can provide us with the antithesis to our anxiety that we experience.

Now, is that the whole picture? No. It's a complex, very faceted picture.

But it's a part of it. And it's something that we can tangibly do, something we can tangibly control.

If we can manage to quiet those anxieties in order to be able to meditate upon them, and then follow through on the practice of what we learned and received, we can take steps in the right direction.

Paul talks about a very similar concept in 1 Timothy 4 and verse 15, and we won't turn there.

In the passage of 1 Timothy 4 and verse 15, if you want to pop it up on the screen, feel free.

But he describes to Timothy the importance of meditating on. In this case, the Greek word is melittaiō, which means to practice or to cultivate, to think about or to meditate on.

And what that kind of gets at is this idea that you're cultivating something. It's little by little by little. You don't plant a seed immediately, and the next day it's a tomato.

It takes time. You have to cultivate. You have to weed. You have to water. You have to fertilize. It's a process.

It's a process. Little steps that ultimately make very big change.

But he talks about cultivating or thinking about or meditating on the things that Paul described to Timothy in the passage earlier, which was paying attention to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine, to the Spirit of God that was dwelling in him.

Paul encouraged Timothy to spend time meditating on those things.

Meditating on what he had read. Meditating on the doctrine of God. Meditating on his law. Meditating on his way. Meditating on the Spirit that is dwelling in him.

Not emptying our mind of all things as we would be encouraged through the tenets of Eastern meditation, but instead focusing thoughts on God and God's Word, on his teachings, his spirit, his ways, his truth.

Not spending time focusing and spending inordinate amounts of energy focusing on the falsehoods that are pushed by society.

Sometimes I think we spend way too much time so focused on what society is doing and not enough time meditating on what God is doing and what God is in the process of taking care of.

Instead, we need to be focused on him. We need to be focused on his truth.

You begin to turn over to 1 Kings 19. I think sometimes too, I think we expect that God is going to show up in very big ways.

I think we expect that there's going to be these massive, obvious miracles, show-stopping pyrotechnics, an entrance song.

You know, there's going to be this big show-stopping thing. But you know what we see scripturally? God isn't always found in the big things.

God isn't always found in these huge things. Yes, he is at times.

But not always. Sometimes it means we need to quiet ourselves to be able to hear that voice, to be able to catch that voice.

1 Kings 19, again, if you want to begin turning over there, we'll see the example of Elijah.

Elijah had recently received a message from Jezebel that caused a great deal of anxiety in his heart.

She said, I'm going to kill you tomorrow, Elijah. Imagine that would cause anxiety in anybody's heart.

And the fact that she was so successful in killing so many other people had Elijah thinking, you know, I don't really like this.

And so we see Elijah contemplate on it. We see him preserverate on it. And it robbed Elijah of his strength and will.

The preserveration on this robbed him of his strength, of body, and will.

He ran for his life to Beersheba, ditched his servant in town. So he ditched his servant in Beersheba.

He went a day's journey into the wilderness and he sat down and he prayed, God killed me.

Take my life. God's answer was no. And so God said, well, calm down there, Elijah. Have some food. Have some rest.

He took care of him. He cared for him. He gave him food. He gave him rest.

And ultimately, when Elijah awoke from that time that God fed him and gave him rest, he journeyed into the wilderness for 40 days and 40 nights to Horeb, to the very mountain of God.

Now, this is kind of cool because God's done some other stuff on this mountain in the past, that Horeb.

The mountain in Horeb was where God spoke to Moses in the burning bush.

Ultimately, Elijah goes into a cave on the mountain and he spent the night and God spoke with Elijah.

He instructed him to go out and to stand on the mountain in the presence of God, to come before him in that sense, before his countenance in that way, to go and stand out on the mountain.

Pick it up in verse 11 of 1 Kings 19. We see God's instructions. He said, then he said, Go out, go out and stand on the mountain before the Lord. And it says, Behold, the Lord passed by and a great and strong wind tore into the mountains and broke the rocks in pieces before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind was an earthquake, but the Lord, he says, was not in the earthquake.

After the earthquake, a fire, but the Lord was not there in the fire.

After the fire, a still, small voice.

Elijah, still small, delicate, whispering voice.

In this circumstance, at this time, God spoke to Elijah through a small, still, as the word means, delicate, whispering voice.

Now, at times in the past, God has spoken to his people through thunderings and boomings from the top of the mountain.

So much that the Israelites said, Moses, you listen to him. We'll do whatever he asks us to do.

We're scared to death of the boomings and the thunderings.

There were times in which God spoke through fire, a burning bush that was not consumed.

Moses was present. God spoke to Job through a whirlwind.

So all of these things mentioned here, they've happened before.

But in this case, in this circumstance, God chose a small and delicate voice.

Now, does that mean that his voice will always be delicate and quiet? No.

I think sometimes God has spoken to me with a 2x4 to the forehead, which I'm very thankful for, because I think sometimes I don't always hear the other things so well.

But it does seem to indicate, brethren, that if our life is constantly full of noise, if our life is constantly full of distractions and numbing things with time, that if it is a still, small voice, we may tune out the very voice that we need to be attuned to in the process.

Brethren, when was the last time that you sat longer than 5 to 10 minutes in silent, contemplative thought about the Word of God?

No phones, no distractions, no conversation with anybody else, mouth closed, ears open, sitting quietly, thinking, just thinking about the Word of God.

Not prayer, not in communicative output with God, not in Bible study, not in literary input from God, but in meditation, letting God's Word speak to us through the stillness and the refocusing of our minds and its thoughts to be able to be placed upon Him.

Sitting in silent stillness, taking captive every thought that is not on God, just meditating on His Word, His Law, His ways, and how those things will inform your life.

Has it been a while?

Has it been a while?

If the answer is yes, I would encourage you to put aside some time this next week. Give it a shot.

Carve out 30 minutes in your schedule. You can even start smaller than that. 15. See if you can make the study. 15 minutes. But carve out that time.

It's not going to be easy, but honestly, nothing is. Choose your heart. Choose what's tough. At the end of the day, nothing's easy. Pick the hard thing.

It will take concentrated practice to make meditation a regular part of your spiritual practice if you've not performed it before. It will take time, but its benefits to you spiritually and practically are going to outweigh any of the challenges.

Psalm 119, 97-99, I'm going to quote it to end. Oh, how love I your law. It is my meditation all the day. You through your commandments make me wiser than my enemies, for they are ever with me. I have more understanding than all my teachers for your testimonies are my meditation.