I have learned since I had my stroke that I really like silence more than noisy environments. The cacophony of chaotic noise, whether it is a crowd of people, loud music or a loud television or radio, tend to annoy me. It hurts my brain and causes me to withdraw and look for a quiet place. I think that we all need to learn to enjoy silence. We fill our days with noise. Some of us wake up in the morning and immediately turn on the television or pick up our phones and watch a video. We go out to work in traffic, with honking horns all around us and music or a talk show blaring on the radio. If we are still working, we spend our days with people demanding our attention, some of them all at one time. There is no lack of noise all around us. Thus, I think that enjoying the silence is a good thing, so I practice it when I am doing my devotional and when I am reading. I used to read with the TV on, dividing my attention between the two. Now I can only focus if I read a book and that is all that I am doing at that time. It’s important to focus on God when you are spending time with Him, too.

We can better enjoy God’s presence in our lives if we are quiet before Him and wait for Him to speak to our hearts. He won’t talk over top of all of the distractions around us, or at least He doesn’t in my experience. I have to be quiet to hear Him.

One of the best ways for me to appreciate God is to look around me at the beauty of the creation He gave us to enjoy. And the best part of it is that He didn’t have to make everything so pleasing to our eyes, ears, nose and mouth. It was His love for us that had Him gift us with such delights. So, take a walk alone, look around you and listen for God’s voice talk to you. He created what you see just for you to enjoy. Enjoy the silence!