We are sitting together on the floor: me putting the nativity characters in the “correct” positions around the manger scene like the occasional order-obsesser that I am, he trying to shove Little People™ Mary into a tiny plastic John Deere™ Gator Utility Vehicle. Suddenly, his little toddler-anguish seemed louder. It took me a moment to realize the robot vacuum had completed its job, hurling us into a sudden silence. The high-pitched humming had been going on for so long that I didn’t register it as background noise until it was gone.
If you’ve spent more than five minutes with children, you know there is such thing as too quiet. Like the time my older daughter unwrapped all of the Christmas presents and strew wrapping paper around the living room like patchy snow on a warm afternoon in winter…I fear the quiet.
I realize I’ve attributed this “too quiet” fear to God as well. When life is going well, when I haven’t been challenged, when I read stories of terror in other countries that I will hopefully never face, I worry. What is God up to? When will the other shoe fall? Surely things are quiet now because some great tragedy awaits me. Or, perhaps I’m too weak? Maybe God has made my way easy because he knows my strength or faith are too small and weak to handle anything more than a minor inconvenience. Am I no better than the servant who hid his talent in the dirt?
So I fill my calendar and my to-do list with noise. (oh, this part is easy)
Pinterest is loaded with cute ‘December bucket list’ printables to make sure no important memory-making moment is missed: cozy movie night! Cookie decorating! Selfie after dark in a shacket and mom jeans drinking a spiced latte in a city park with a glowing evergreen tree in the background!
The library boasts hundreds of books written by parents in other countries with superior parenting ideals: take the kids outside for 8-9 hours every day while feeding them gourmet vegetable-rich meals and visiting festivals, art museums, and hiking trails 9-10 times per week!
Amazon provides fancy kitchen tools, aesthetically pleasing toys, and accessories to fill the cart or obsess over reviews to find the perfect one.
It’s easy to fill the too-quiet space with noise and then tune it out.
But what the lack of noise isn’t about me?
What if God’s plan for my life and the lives of others isn’t based on some checked-box system but on his holy and divine purposes? What if he has a plan for my life that will serve others, bless my faith, and accomplish his purposes without having to make sure I ‘do all the things’? Because when the hard things do hit, or when He wants me to be still and know, I am too often too busy to hear, reflect, mourn.
In this final month of 2023, of my year of Quiet, I want to live in this truth: whether the noise is a real struggle or self-imposed busyness or importance, God is the still, small voice. Emmanuel.
Enjoy the little things, and not keep track
Eat both vegetables and cookies
Mourn the hard and not keep score
Lean into the noise so I’m ready to listen when it’s quiet.
Better a handful with quietness than both hands full, together with toil and grasping for the wind. Ecclesiastes 4:6 (NKJV)
Reflection Questions (take five to ten minutes right now, or schedule time for yourself to do this. It’s best to write it down, take a note in your notes app, or say it out loud).
Sometimes the humming buzz of life is very palpable, and other times we don’t notice it until its gone. What is the noise in your life right now? (Some thoughts to get you started: the pressure to be perfect? A job that demands hours both in the office chair and out? Caring for an aging parent, child or adult with special needs? Attending to funeral plans? Feeling bored?)
How can you lean into the noise?
What does it mean to you personally that God is with us (Emmanuel)?
What do you want to embrace in this final month of 2023?