QUIETUDE

Make it your goal to live a quiet life…. 1 Thessalonians 4:11 (NLT)

…..let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God’s sight is very precious. 1pet 3:3-4

…that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty. 1 Timothy 2:2

 

I recently read a book titled The Sovereignty of Quiet where the author makes a compelling argument about the distinction between silence and quiet. The author notes that while silence may mean the absence of sound or noise, quiet is more encompassing. He explains that silence sometimes is characteristic of quiet but more than that, quiet is a quality of the soul – it is a way of being.

Having read scriptures like 1 Thessalonians 4:11, 1 Peter 3:3-4 and 1 Timothy 2:2, I cannot but agree more with this author. But unfortunately, we live in a time where people are given to all forms of noise ranging from the social media to anxieties and cacophonous entertainments. In fact, I heard somewhere that the anxiety level of American teenagers today is on the same measure with psychiatric patients in the mid-twentieth century. This is a frightening reality and, perhaps, what is even more frightening is that, as Christians, our quiet times are no longer quiet.

In this noisy age, we seem to be losing the spiritual virtue of quiet and what I have discovered is that many people actually dread being quiet – a kind of staying still.

Take it or leave it, quiet is a depth of being that we need in this (post)modern world of normalised shallowness. It is a behaviour (Psalms 131:2) that is needed in navigating the vicissitude of our neoliberalised lives.

Quiet is the kind of stillness that you embrace even when the world around you is tumbling down – a quiet stability.

Don’t get this twisted. There are many things that quiet, in this context, is not. It is not simply a stress-relieving, relaxation or yoga kind of thing. It is rather closer to gentleness ­– a fruit of the spirit.

It has a restful and a peaceful quality that differs from what the world gives (John 14:27)

David is one of the people who deeply felt the texture of quiet. In many of the Psalms he wrote, he invoked this sense and attitude of stillness – quietness– in the midst of life’s storms (Psalm 131:2, Psalm 37:7, Psalm 62:5). He established, for us, the importance of quiet in the Christian life when he invoked the imagery of “still waters” in the popular Psalm 23 – He leads me beside the still waters.

Quiet is not timidity, it is a pool of strength. We are reminded in Isaiah 30:15 that “in quietness shall be our strength”.

Quiet is not necessarily an introversion, it is a state of mind that goes with you to work and to the marketplace –  a quiet confidence (Psalm46:1-11).

Quiet is a practice of meditation ­–  a mediation on God and His words. For it is your way to be bountifully blessed (Psalm 1:2, Joshua 1:8) and be kept in perfect peace (Isaiah 26:3) – a quiet that sharpens sensitivity to the Holy Spirit.

Quiet is the mode that you are when you find yourself waiting on God (Psalm 37:7). For it is in the quietness of your spirit that you get to hear the still small voice of God (Habakkuk 2:20, I King 19:12).

Let us make it our goal to live a quiet life even when everything around us seeks our attention and when everything in us seeks attention.

PS: And the effect of righteousness will be peace, and the result of righteousness, quietness and trust forever. Isaiah 32:17