Shooting across the boat’s wake, my waterski accelerated faster than expected. Instead of slowing down to turn around the buoy on the slalom course, I found myself catapulting headfirst into the water. Resurfacing, I swam toward the boat, feeling a bit shaken by the crash. Over the days that followed, I felt “off” but couldn’t pinpoint exactly what was wrong. Lights and sounds seemed magnified and jarring. Multi-step tasks felt confusing and difficult. I was easily irritated and upset by things that normally didn’t bother me. Looking up my symptoms online I finally realized the truth: I had a concussion.
After a visit to the doctor, I cut back on my responsibilities and limited my time in places with lots of stimuli. Going to the grocery store was too much for me. I stopped listening to music and ceased multitasking. I had to monitor time spent watching TV or working on the computer or I’d become agitated and overwhelmed. I spent significant time daily lying down in a quiet, darkened room letting my brain rest and heal.
Because I’d ignored the warning signs from my body during the first few days after my fall, I hadn’t given my brain quiet time to rest and recover. Bombarding it with constant inputs early on slowed the healing process, causing much of my life to be put on hold for two months.
I thought of that strange season as I considered the second weapon to fight negative spirals in our minds. In case you missed last week’s post, I’ve been working through Jennie Allen’s Get Out of Your Head: A Study in Philippians. The book identifies the primary enemies of our minds and the weapons God gives us to fight them. It’s been powerful using these tools to stop my downward spirals and toxic thoughts before they go too far.
My last post covered the first enemy of our minds: self-importance. We learned that humility is the weapon God gives us to fight against it. The second enemy of our minds highlighted in the book is noise. Not surprisingly, the weapon to fight against it is silence. Take a moment and consider all of the inputs you receive on a given day: texts, e-mails, phone calls, social media posts, podcasts, TV, radio, news, magazines, and books. I haven’t even mentioned face-to-face conversations, meetings in person or on Zoom, interactions with cashiers, fellow customers, or restaurant servers. And what about the junk mail, phone messages, bills, and solicitations you process daily? Just writing the list makes me feel overwhelmed. No doubt, the number of inputs entering our minds on any given day is staggering. There’s a lot of noise bouncing around in our brains.
Most of us have grown so accustomed to the constant barrage of information demanding our attention, we don’t realize how deeply we’re being affected by it. Jennie Allen explains, “Recognizing our spirals and naming them is the first step in interrupting them. That’s why the enemy wants to fill our lives and our heads and hearts with noise. Because silence with God is the beginning of every victory. Stillness, solitude in the presence of God, is the basis of our strategy for interrupting all kinds of problematic thought patterns…In silence we get to rewrite that pattern while taking back the power He has given us.”
I think all of us could benefit from being more cognizant of the number of inputs we receive daily. We need time to step away from the noise and give our minds and souls a rest. One of my favorite verses reinforces this idea, “The LORD your God is with you, he is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing.” (Zephaniah 3:17, NIV ’84)
We consume and process an endless supply of information. And these constant inputs make us weary and often leave us feeling inadequate, overwhelmed, and anxious. But when we take time to draw near to the Lord, we allow Him to silence the noise in our heads that distracts us from Him. Letting Him quiet our spirits gives our minds rest and reminds us of His sovereignty over all things.
In fact, God spoke directly to His people about this very thing through the prophet Isaiah. He chastised them for rejecting His wisdom: “In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength, but you would have none of it.” (Isaiah, 30:15, NIV ’84) This passage explains that the path to salvation and strength is paved with repentance, rest, quietness, and trust. It also highlights how people often choose to ignore this truth. Sounds a lot like our culture today.
Jennie Allen suggests, “When you’re stuck in a downward spiral of discontent and distraction, get quiet. What truth will you shift your thoughts toward, in order to combat the lie that anything else can satisfy you like spending time with God?”
I love how David’s words highlight the first two weapons we’ve considered:
“Lord, my heart is not proud; my eyes are not haughty. I don’t concern myself with matters too great or too awesome for me to grasp. Instead, I have calmed and quieted myself, like a weaned child who no longer cries for its mother’s milk. Yes, like a weaned child is my soul within me.” (Psalm 131:1-2, NLT) Humility and quiet stop negative spirals and lead us to peace and contentment.
Fight the constant noise in your life by pulling away for a few moments with the Lord. Monitor your inputs to stop the negative spirals that threaten to pull you downward. Let God realign your thoughts with the truth of His Word as you spend quiet time with Him.
For some tips on good Scriptures to read as you spend quiet time with God, check out my recent post “Rise to Rest” by clicking here.
Jennie Allen, Get Out of Your Head: A Study in Philippians, Thomas Nelson Press, 2020, 62-63, 64