How to Be Still With God When Silence Feels Uncomfortable

How can you be still with God when silence feels uncomfortable?

In a world filled with phones, social media, television, news, work, relationships, and constant demands, quiet rarely happens accidentally. The moment life becomes still, many of us instinctively reach for something to fill the silence. But what might we be using all that noise to avoid?

In this episode of Yoked to Christ, Todd Turner explores how Christians can develop a meaningful quiet time with God, overcome digital distractions, and become more attentive to God through prayer, Scripture, and honest reflection.

Jesus regularly withdrew from crowds, expectations, and competing voices to pray. His example challenges us to ask whether our attention is being shaped by God or captured by our phones, politics, appetites, fears, and desire for approval.

This episode is especially for Christians walking through divorce, betrayal, rejection, trauma, grief, loneliness, or another painful season. When life becomes quiet, difficult thoughts and emotions may rise to the surface. That does not mean silence is failing. It may reveal the pain our distractions have allowed us to avoid.

Sometimes we are not looking for entertainment. We are looking for anesthesia.

Noise can temporarily numb pain, but it cannot heal it. Distraction can postpone an emotion, but it cannot resolve it.

IN THIS EPISODE:

• Why silence can initially feel uncomfortable
• How phones and digital distractions capture our attention
• Why Jesus withdrew from crowds to pray
• How cultural and political voices compete for our allegiance
• What Psalm 46:10 means when it says, “Be still and know that I am God”
• Why quiet can bring painful emotions to the surface after divorce or loss
• The difference between Christian quiet and emptying your mind
• Practical ways to create a quiet time with God
• How prayer, Scripture, and journaling help untangle our thoughts
• Why silence is not the destination—God is

SCRIPTURES MENTIONED:

Psalm 46:10
Mark 1:35–38
1 John 2:16

PRACTICAL WAYS TO BECOME QUIET BEFORE GOD:

• Put your phone in another room
• Begin your morning with Scripture before checking messages
• Drive without playing music, news, or a podcast
• Take a prayer walk without your phone
• Eat a meal without television or another screen
• Spend part of a day away from social media and the news
• Read one Psalm or Proverb slowly
• Keep a journal nearby and write honestly
• Ask what you may be using noise to avoid
• Surrender outcomes you cannot control to God

Quiet will not always feel peaceful at first. For someone carrying deep trauma or emotional pain, extended silence may initially feel unsafe or overwhelming. Begin gently and consider talking with a trusted pastor, mature Christian friend, or qualified counselor.

Silence is not the destination. God is. We do not become quiet merely to experience less of the world. We become quiet so that we can be more attentive to the One who has been with us all along.

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Transcript

Todd Turner (00:05)
When was the last time you sat in complete silence? No television, no music, no podcast, no scrolling, no one talking, just you and God. For many of us, silent does not feel peaceful. Feels uncomfortable. The moment life becomes quiet, we reach for something to fill it. Our phones have turned this into really an epidemic. Watch what happens.
When someone has to wait 10 seconds. We reach for our phones while standing in line, sitting at a red light, waiting for an elevator, or even just a brief pause in a conversation. We no longer merely use our phones when we need something. we use them to protect ourselves from having an unoccupied thought.
There's almost always something available to watch, to read, to play, to buy, to answer, to worry about. That means we rarely have to sit with ourselves. more importantly, we rarely have time to sit quietly before God.
what might we be missing because we never become quiet enough to notice.
Many of us tend to picture the world of Jesus, the ancient days, as peaceful, uncomplicated. You know, all people who lived back then, they just ate figs and talked about life while they were fishing. Life was quiet and easy. There was no phones, television, news alerts, or social media feeds. But that's just really not true. In the world of Jesus, it was filled with its own kind of noise.
Jesus specifically crowds followed him from place to place. Religious leaders continued to confront him. People brought him problems, questions, sickness, controversy. His disciples argued and competed for importance. Rome's political and military presence was everywhere.
Families, markets, religion, obligation, daily survival demanded attention. So to learn about us and this issue of being quiet, let's connect us to the Bible. First century Jewish life was also filled with disagreements about what a life of faithfulness to God should look like. Like today, different groups competed for people's attention.
Their loyalty and their obedience. We're introduced to characters in the New Testament that were not in the Old Testament. Have you ever wondered about that? Like, why did we not hear about the Pharisees and where do these Romans come from? So let's just take a minute to talk briefly about who was there. Not, I'm not giving a history lesson of why they were there, but just who they were and what Jesus had to deal with.
on a day to day and not just Jesus, the disciples, anybody who lived around there. There was this group called the Pharisees. They believed that Israel needed to remain faithful to God through careful obedience to the law and the traditions that they had developed around the law. They took holiness seriously but became so focused on the external observance that they missed the heart of God's command. That is true.
Their message would sound like if Israel becomes faithful enough, God will bless and restore us.
And then you just had everyday people, the ordinary folks, who were trying to remain faithful while supporting their families, just figuring out a way to pay all these taxes, observing their religious obligations, and surviving under foreign rule, they were surrounded by these competing voices. Obey the traditions, protect.
The temple cooperate with Rome, fight Rome, separate from the corruption.
Preserve your family. Prepare for the Messiah.
The same temptations are here for us with our in our modern living. The names have changed, but the competing promises sound remarkably familiar. Holiness will save us. Institutional influence will save us.
Political victory will save us. Government power will save us.
Access to powerful people will save us.
Separation from corrupt people will save us.
Jesus refused all those as substitute for the kingdom of God.
So let's just be honest, guys. The uncomfortable question is not who are the Pharisees today? It's we have to look inward. Where am I tempted to appear righteous without allowing God to examine my heart? We're tying into the quietness. How can you hear the answer to that question in a busy world? You just can't.
All these groups were competing to tell people what faithfulness required. We face the same pressure today. Cable news tells us what to fear.
Political parties tell us whom to hate. Social media tells us what to desire.
Religious personalities tell us which controversies should consume us. Advertisers tell us what we lack. Our chosen tribe tells us what we are allowed to question.
Every group wants our attention because attention eventually produces allegiance. That's another reason Jesus withdrew.
Quiet space, ask, is this the voice of God or is this the voice of my tribe? Have I confused my political opinions with God's complete agenda? Am I defending scripture or am I defending my traditions?
Have I softened truth to remain acceptable? Have I become more passionate about defeating people than reaching them? Have I withdrawn from the world instead of loving my neighbor?
Am I actually following Jesus or am I asking Jesus to follow me? Ouch.
When Jesus was being pressured by all those around him, trying to get him to be on their side, he did not allow every demand to determine his schedule or where he spent his energy. The Bible says Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed. That word often matters. Withdrawing was not an emergency response. Jesus used when he became overwhelmed, it was part of his response.
Regular rhythm of life. In Mark chapter 1, Jesus went to a solitary place early in the morning.
In Mark 1, the disciples found Jesus praying and told him, Hey, everybody's looking for you. They were real people with real needs waiting on Jesus, but Jesus did not automatically return to the crowd. He knew his mission could not be determined solely by the loudest or most immediate demand. Jesus loved people deeply. he did, and he does. But he did not remain consistently accessible to them. He withdrew to pray.
To rest, to commune with his Father, and return with clarity. Sometimes the most spiritual thing we can do is walk away from the noise long enough to remember who we are, whose we are, and what God has actually called us to do. If Jesus intentionally stepped away from the crowd, why do you think we can remain consistently connected without it affecting our souls? The world wants
All of our attention. The noise around us is not always sinful, but they can become controlling. You're gathering social obligations, family, the demands that come with that, right? Fame, recognition, approval, food, entertainment, pleasure, news, politics.
Social media, dating, romance, work, financial success, even some of the church activity, your family, food, work, relationships, recreation, they all good gifts, but good gifts can come a demanding master when we ask it to provide something that only God can give.
John describes the pull of the world this way. He says, For everything in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the pride of life comes not from the Father, but from the world. So what we've been talking about for the last 10 minutes is that there's the noise of culture, right? Like the culture gives you noise. The different groups, the political groups, they give you noise.
an ideal of tribism that you you should be faithful to for the reasons they want you faithful. But I'll let's take a minute to see the noise of ourselves, the things we want to, that lust of the flesh, right? The desires of the flesh. Like this is a demand to satisfy your appetite.
It can include sexual desire, gluttony, comfort, entertainment, intoxication, or any physical appetite that begins controlling you and me. The desire itself may be natural, but it becomes dangerous when it starts telling us you need this, you deserve this, you cannot be content without it. The desires of your eyes this is the craving awakened by what
I see. I see someone else's appearance, relationship, home, success, ministry, vacation, or lifestyle, and suddenly what God has given me starts feeling insufficient. Our phones give us an endless window into what other people have. We can spend hours feeding desires that did not exist until an image placed them in front of us. Think about all these very
Vacation reels and all these things you're like, I'm missing out. I'm missing out on what the world has to offer. And I want that. I want that fame. I want to be important, which turns into the pride of life. This is the desire to be admired, important, successful, influential, or in control. It asks.
Who notices me? Who approves of me?
How do I compare? Am I winning?
Do people recognize my value?
Can I control how others see me? Even ministry can feed the pride of life. We become so busy doing things for God that we stop being present with God. We confuse working at church, you know, or playing church, if you will. Being there whenever the doors are open.
The world offers endless ways to feed our appetites, envy, and ego. But am I ever quiet enough, or you ever quiet enough to ask, has all this become so loud that I can no longer hear God clearly?
What am I chasing? Why am I chasing it? What do I believe I will finally feel if I get it?
Am I asking people, pleasure, or success to tell me that I matter? That one's a hard one. Is this drawing me toward God or merely helping me avoid myself? We cannot answer those questions honestly if we never stop long enough to ask them.
After trauma, a loss, divorce, betrayal, rejection, quiet may bring painful thoughts or emotions to the surface. as we deal with rejection, regret, anger, shame, fear about the future, the desire to be chosen again.
Questions about God, the ache of being alone, memories that we cannot change, conversations that we continue to replay.
This is one reason we keep the television playing, scrolling late into the night, overfilling our calendar, eat when we're not hungry, drink more than we should, or move too quickly into other relationships.
We may not be looking for entertainment, we may be looking for anesthesia. Noise can temporar pain, but it cannot heal it. Distraction can postpone an emotion, but it cannot resolve it.
When the noise stops, we may discover that our bodies and our minds are still carrying things in our schedule that have allowed us to ignore. That does not mean everybody should force themselves into an extended silence immediately. For someone carrying deep trauma, silence can initially feel unsafe or overwhelming. Start gently. Sit somewhere that feels safe, keep your eyes open if necessary, take a walk, read a psalm out loud.
Speak with a trusted pastor, a counselor, or one of your mature friends. Christian quiet is not about isolating ourselves out inside our pain. It's about bringing our pain honestly to the presence of God. Hear that? Being quiet is sometimes about bringing our pain honestly into the presence of God. God meets us in the places we have been trying not to feel.
He does not always remove those feelings immediately, but he reminds us that we do not have to face them alone.
Psalms 46 says it so simply. We all know this one. Be still and know that I am God. This verse often is printed over pictures of lakes or mountains or pastures.
46 is not describing a peaceful world. It speaks of the earth giving way, mountains falling, waters roaring,
nations raging.
And kingdoms falling. God speaks in the chaos and says, be still. This is more than an invitation to relax. It carries the idea of stopping, releasing, ceasing our frantic attempts to control everything. God is not saying, calm down, nothing bad's gonna happen. He is saying, stop striving and recognize who I am.
Even while the world around you feels unstable. Being still means loosening our grip. It means acknowledging these things. God is God, I am not. I do not have to solve everything today. I do not need everyone's approval. I cannot control every outcome.
My future is not resting entirely on my shoulders. God remains present when my feelings are unsettled. Silence is not emptiness when God is present. Be still is not passivity. It is surrender. It's refusing to allow fear, urgency, or other people's expectations to occupy the place that belongs to God.
Okay, this is super important. Quiet usually will not happen accidentally. Much of the modern world has been intentionally designed to capture and hold our attention. Every notification we get says, look at me. Every news alert says, you need to know this now. Every social platform says, keep scrolling. The next thing may finally.
Satisfy you. And this idea, it even happens in my family, this fear of missing out. Like, did you see the podcast? Did you hear the thing? Did you see that funny reel? And we've we are almost bombarding ourselves with this idea that we're all supposed to keep up. Somehow you can keep up. You can scroll for infinity and you will never keep up. So why even try? Miss out on the funny reel.
Miss out on the that podcast episode you don't have time to listen to. If we wait until the world gives us permission to become quiet, we will never become quiet. We must deliberately reclaim our attention. Just as fasting from food reveals our physical appetites, fasting from the noise that's around us reveals what has been controlling our attention.
When we remove the distractions, we may initially feel restless, but that restlessness is not evidence that quiet's failing. It may be revealing how dependent we have become on stimulation. The goal is not trying to prove our discipline. Let's reject technology and withdraw permanently from people. The goal is to quiet competing voices so that our hearts become more attentive to God. Family texts, church text.
Social media, email, live TV, sports, all of them, they can be paused. How do we do it? How do we practice this? Well, if you're like me, I had to do it in small steps. I had to make it realistic. I set aside quiet minutes each day. I don't care if it's 10 minutes. Ten minutes may feel feel really long at first. It's okay. We are learning, become present again.
Put your phone in the other room. I'm getting good at this. I put the phone's a tool. It's not a lifestyle. It should serve you. It you should not live under its constant command.
Turn it face down. Put it on the other side. The anticipation of a notification can still occupy your attention. Put it somewhere you can't instinctively get to it. Phone down, upside down, not a bad thing. Sometimes like when you're at dinner. But if you're just waiting to turn that thing over, that's not putting it down. It just means you turn it down for a minute so you don't see it glowing at the very least when you get a message. All right.
Put a book on your table. The Bible. Put it on your couch. Put it on your coffee table. Read. Reading is so important. Quiet is not an attempt to empty your mind or discover some hidden truth within yourself. Meditation, that's another issue. But being quiet as a Christian is an opportunity to direct your attention towards God and His revealed word. Read. Consider beginning with.
Psalms are always great, right? The Psalms and the Proverbs. If you only have 10 minutes, a psalm and a proverb a day keeps the pastor away. I'm telling you little is better than nothing. Read slowly. You don't have to finish a chapter. Let one verse hold your attention.
Read it multiple times. Ask yourself this these questions during your prayer, during your meditation, your reading. Ask God, what is happening inside me that I've been avoiding?
What am I afraid will happen if I stop? What have I been using to comfort myself? What am I trying to control? Whose approval am I actually seeking? That one's a tough one. What truth from Scripture do I need to believe in today?
And by the way, if some of you are going take my advice here, don't try to manufacture an experience, right? With being quiet, you may not hear anything dramatic. You may not even feel peaceful. Your thoughts may wander repeatedly, especially if you never do this. The value of quiet is not measured by whether you have an emotional experience. You are practicing attention, surrender, and availability to God. You're exercising that muscle. When your mind wanders, gently bring it back.
the scriptures are before you, to the quietness that is before you. I actually recommend keep a journal. Keep it, keep a pen and paper. Write down your thoughts, fears, temptations, questions, truths that emerge. Naming something can help us stop hiding from it. You are not writing scripture or claiming direct revelation. You're just honestly recording what's happening within you and examining it in the light of God's word.
If you listen to this podcast, you know I say it all the time. Thoughts disentangle themselves over the lips and through the fingertips. When you write and you talk and you speak, these cluttered thoughts become clear. They disentangle themselves. Your goal here with being quiet, learning to be quiet.
Your goal is to speak to God, hear, speak to him and hear from him in a world full of noise. One thing you can ask him is you just say, Father, I cannot control the situation that I'm in. I will do what faithfulness requires, but I surrender the outcomes to you. Meaning, I may be pulled in all these directions.
But instead of chasing those directions, I'm going to chase you, God. And whatever becomes of those things, I'm going to trust you that you are faithful, that you love me, and you want to give me good things. And sometimes that means cutting out things from my life. Noise. Cutting out noise. Here's some other practical ways that you can have moments with God. Drive without anything playing on the radio. Take
Prayer walk, but don't take your phone.
Turn off screens, TV, all of them for an evening. Just one evening. Eat a meal without your phone or watching TV, even in the quiet. Wait before responding to every notification. I know people will hate that, but guess what? It's good for you. What do you care if somebody gets mad at you because you didn't answer a text right away? Who said you were supposed to?
What rule, what law says you're supposed to answer somebody when they want you? That's their issue, not yours. Your job, that's another story. If they're friends, if a friend can't understand that you didn't have your phone on you, man, you may want to check that friendship. Spend learn how to spend half a day away from social media, the news, streaming something. Sit outside.
Pay attention to God's creation. I find that's a great setting is to be in nature. Cause y you know, inside of a building, whether you're LED lights, it's hard to think about God. But boy, sitting outside and trees and birds and maybe you have mountains or rivers or the ocean, like boy, you it makes you think about God real quick when you're out in his creation. Begin your morning with scripture before you check your messages.
The phone's in the other room, it's gonna be easy with the Bible on your nine stand. End your day without taking your phone into your bedroom.
You ready for this one? I think this is probably way, way closer when you have good friends. But allow a moment of silence in your conversation without rushing to fill it. Not every second has to be full of information and talking and laughter. Sometimes sitting in silence with somebody is just golden. So here's some closing thoughts, some practical things. Quiet will not always feel peaceful at first. It won't.
I struggled with it honestly for probably almost a year. Sometimes it just feels unsettling because the noise was helping us avoid our own hearts and thoughts. Silence is not the destination here. God is. We do not get quiet merely to experience less of the world. We get quiet so that we become more aware of the one who's been with us all along.
The world will continue to asking for your attention. Other people will continue having opinions about what you should do. Your phone will continue offering you an escape from every uncomfortable moment.
But you do not have to answer every voice. Sometimes you need to step away, become still, open God's word, and remember God is God. You belong to Him, and you are not alone.