Over three hundred years ago, Blaise Pascal observed, “All of the unhappiness of men arises from one single fact, that they cannot stay quietly in their own chamber” (Pensées, 39). Pascal attributes this inability to our love of endless amusement, which distracts us from our doubts, worries, and discontent. And so, for most people, “The pleasure of solitude is a thing incomprehensible” (40). Now, even if Pascal overplayed his hand, the point he makes echoes the value that Scripture places on silence.

Isaiah records one of God’s invitations to be quiet: “Thus said the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel, ‘In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and in trust shall be your strength’” (Isaiah 30:15). God invites his people to be quiet and connects that quietness to strength, rest, and finding our home in him. On the other hand, Isaiah warns, “The wicked are like the tossing sea; for it cannot be quiet, and its waters toss up mire and dirt” (Isaiah 57:20). The wicked rage like an ocean in a storm, unable to be still.

Therefore, those who want to avoid the unhappiness that Pascal describes and pursue the stable satisfaction that God promises learn to practice the habit of quiet.

Quiet Soul, Quiet Mouth

What is quietness, according to God? First, biblical quietness is not simply a lack of noise. External silence is often part of the habit of quiet, but true quietness goes much deeper. Biblical quietness refers primarily to a quiet demeanor or quiet heart — a restful silence of soul — because often a noisy mouth is the overflow of a noisy heart.

Thus, Proverbs says the wise man both restrains his words and quiets his soul (Proverbs 17:27; 29:11), his outward silence matching his inward peace. But the fool is loud and restless, a lover of noise (Proverbs 7:11; 9:13). Moreover, because we are body-soul creatures, what we do externally affects us internally and vice versa. So, the habit of quiet involves cultivating inner quietness by creating rhythms of outer quietness.

Second, biblical quietness does not negate the need to speak. Scripture places a high premium on well-timed words (Proverbs 25:11). There is a time to be zealous. There is a time to speak with unction and conviction. There is a time to herald from the mountaintops. There is a time to declare, “Thus says the Lord!” And there is “a time to keep silence” (Ecclesiastes 3:7).

Our Default Volume: Loud

The need for quiet is not new to the modern age. Man’s default volume has always been loud. Four hundred years before Jesus, Plato lamented that most people live “a distracted existence” led in circles by the songs and sounds of society (The Republic, 164). And earlier still, David expressed the need for silence by saying, “I have calmed and quieted my soul . . . like a weaned child is my soul within me” (Psalm 131:2).

Distraction, from within and without, is not novel, but modernity has amped up the volume. We live in a society that often hates quiet, one in which the loudest hearts are awarded the largest platforms. We are besieged by the newest news, harried by busyness, drowning in noise, endlessly accompanied by devices of endless distraction. And even if much of the content we consume is good, it is always on. Too often, we know neither inner nor outer quiet.

Yet wise men have always celebrated silence. Some 150 years ago, Charles Spurgeon said, “Quietude, which some men cannot abide because it reveals their inward poverty, is as a palace of cedar to the wise, for along its hallowed courts the King in his beauty deigns to walk” (Lectures to My Students, 64). Indeed, the King did hallow those halls. King Jesus created rhythms of quiet during his time on earth. It was his custom to create space to be alone with his Father (Luke 22:39).

How will we hear birdsong, that symphony of the Father’s care for creation, if we are never quiet? How can we attend to God’s still, small voice whispering wisdom in his word if our hearts never stop murmuring? We have a great need for silence.

Call to the Deeps

Imagine life as an ocean. Waves constantly toss the surface of that sea and assault the shore — waves of sound, waves of worry, waves of work and entertainment, waves of deadlines and events, waves of stubborn children and sinful parents. Waves, waves, waves. And yet, peace is never far off. Even the mightiest waves that march across the face of the ocean cannot disturb the water 150 feet below the surface. Peace ever reigns in the deeps. And it is to those deeps God calls us through the habit of quiet.

Spurgeon enjoyed those depths. He knew from habitual experience the “pleasure of solitude” that Pascal speaks of. In one of his lectures to aspiring pastors, Spurgeon delivers this perennial advice:

I am persuaded that . . . most of us think too much of speech [and action], which after all is but the shell of thought. Quiet contemplation, still worship, unuttered rapture, these are mine when my best jewels are before me. Brethren, rob not your heart of the deep sea joys; miss not the far-down life, by for ever babbling among the broken shells and foaming surges of the shore. (Lectures to My Students, 64)

We are often blown and tossed by waves, beaten and battered by the pounding breakers of life, because we fail to dive below the surface with God. We rob our hearts of deep delights because we never stop babbling.

Yet for Spurgeon, the speech and action that we spend so much time thinking about flower from the leaf mold of a quiet heart. And the rewards of that quietness are unfathomable, in the fullest sense of that word — inexpressible rapture, awestruck worship, treasure to contemplate, the far-down life. Oh, and deep-sea joys! Surely this is enough to motivate Christian Hedonists to be still before the Lord. Indeed, God is magnified when we are silently satisfied in him.

Handful of Quietness

Seeing how high the stakes are, the question naturally arises, “How do I practice the discipline of silence?” How do we seize what Ecclesiastes calls “a handful of quietness” (Ecclesiastes 4:6)? Whole Christian traditions have been devoted to nurturing a life of calm contemplation. But I will simply offer two suggestions.

First, sometime this week, set aside fifteen minutes to create external quiet in order to cultivate internal quiet. Pascal’s advice to stay quietly in your own chamber is a good place to start, but inner rooms don’t have a monopoly on silence. I recommend taking a walk in the woods. Few places resonate more with God’s presence and songs of silent praise. Or get up early enough to watch the sunrise. Quiet abounds when most people sleep. Or if all else fails, don some noise-canceling headphones. Whatever you have to do, create spaces and rhythms of stillness.

Second, practice the discipline of silence on Sunday morning. This may sound paradoxical, but remember the primary goal is a still heart, not a lack of sound. How often do you sit in a worship service with a heart closer to Plato’s “distracted existence” than David’s weaned and quieted soul (Psalm 131:2)? Don’t miss the far-down life enjoyed in Christian community by harboring a babbling heart. Instead, let your worship overflow from satisfied silence before God (Isaiah 14:7). Sing loud from a quiet heart. As your pastor heralds the word of God, calm your soul and put away your phone. Don’t be distracted by lunch plans or tomorrow’s work or endless waves of worry. Be quiet to enjoy the deeps.

Perhaps Pascal did not overstate his case. We do forfeit much happiness when we refuse to practice the habit of quiet. After all, our Lord bids us, “Be still, and know that I am God” (Psalm 46:10). And when we do so, he will quiet us with his unfathomable love (Zephaniah 3:17).

Audio Transcript

Two weeks back, two Mondays ago, we looked at how to glorify God in our business successes. That was APJ 1915. Now two weeks later, we are talking about business again more broadly. It’s a question from a listener named Travis. “Pastor John, hello to you. Can you tell me whether our work today is a blessing or a curse? Much of our work seems to be cursed, based on Genesis 3. But a lot of our work also seems to be a God-given blessing, according to Ecclesiastes. According to the Bible, is my nine-to-five job a blessing, or is it a curse?”

Let’s start with the first work mentioned in the Bible — namely, God’s work. Genesis 2:2–3:

On the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation.

You can’t miss the point. God worked, God worked, God worked. Now, work was not a curse for God. God is not cursed; he’s not burdened; he’s not frustrated; he’s not coerced to do what he does not wish to do. He worked in creation because it was a sign of his greatness and his fullness that he should overflow in creating a world that declares his glory and a human image of himself that can enjoy and worship that glory. That’s no sign of weakness or burdensomeness or frustration; that’s glory. Work was glory for God.

Satisfying Work

From the beginning, work was not a curse. It was a God-like gift, a blessing. The essence of work, as God designed it before the fall into sin, was creativity: creative, productive doing, arranging, making. When God did his primal work, he created the world. Now, that’s the essence of work. Then he created us in his image to put us in a world that he had made, and he said,

Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. . . . [Let them] fill the earth and subdue it. (Genesis 1:26, 28)

Then in Genesis 2:15, it says, “The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it.” Literally, the word is serve. “Serve it,” almost like a serving in the work of the Lord — to serve it, to work it and keep it.

Now, I presume this working and keeping of the garden before the fall was a partial fulfillment of having dominion over the earth and subduing it. Now, what does that imply then? It does not mean that the garden was imperfect as God made it. It wasn’t imperfect. It didn’t need correction, as if God had made a mistake. “Oops! I didn’t fix the garden right; it needs help.” It means God made the garden for man, and part of its perfection was in providing for the man the raw material for being creative like God. Man would flourish in working the garden; the garden would flourish in being worked. It would be beautifully satisfying — not frustrating, not burdensome, not futile. That’s work before the fall: thrilling, satisfying, creative.

Cursed Work?

Now, what the fall did, what sin did when it came into the world (Genesis 3), was to make this glorious reality of satisfying work become futile, burdensome, frustrating. Genesis 3:17–19:

In pain [Adam] you shall eat of [the earth] all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you. . . . By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground.

“The futility and burdensomeness of work is part of the curse of creation, and it won’t always be this way.”

It’s not accurate to say that work is a curse. What’s accurate is to say that the futility and frustration and burdensomeness and painfulness of work is a curse. Paul said in Romans 8:20–21, “The creation was subjected to futility.” When sin came into the world, God subjected creation to futility, “not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself would be set free from its bondage to [futility].” The futility and burdensomeness of work, therefore, is part of the curse of creation, and it won’t always be this way. He said, “There’s a hope coming,” and God put the world under this curse temporarily to show the exceeding sinfulness of sin.

God’s Workmanship

But Christ has come to redeem the world from the curse, and that happens in stages, not all at once. This is true for work as well. It is really significant, when you think about it, that the gospel — the good news of Jesus’s salvation — does not stipulate that work is how you earn it. You can’t earn it; it’s free. Work is not assigned that impossible, hopeless, burdensome role in salvation. This is really good news.

Listen to the three things said about work in our salvation, according to Ephesians 2:8–10:

By grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, [1] not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his [2] workmanship, created in Christ Jesus [3] for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

“We are recreated in Christ for good work.”

This is glorious. First, work does not bear the weight of having to save us. Christ saves us; he does it by faith. Second, God steps in and does the work. He makes us new, and he does everything required to make us new creatures in Christ. We are his workmanship. Third, now that we are loved and forgiven and accepted and adopted, we are created for good works. We were created the first time — that is, brought into being as human people — for good work, way back in the beginning. That was our original intent as human beings, and we are recreated in Christ for good work.

Light Yokes for God’s Glory

This work in Christ is not burdensome. If we find it burdensome, if you find obedience to Jesus and work for Christ to be burdensome, then you’re not thinking clearly, or you’re not trusting Christ the way you should. Listen to Matthew 11:28–30. This is the paradox of the work that Christ calls us to do. On the one hand, we are like hardworking, yoked oxen — and on the other hand, our work is lighter than a feather. Here’s what he says: “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke” — oh, wait a minute, you just said rest. What’s with the yoke? A yoke is what you put on oxen to pull a plow, and it’s hard. “Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

Yes, there is meaningful work to do as we follow Christ. That’s the meaning of yoke. We have a yoke to wear. We’re not thrown out to be doers of nothing. How boring would that be? But in that work, that yoke, there is a restfulness of spirit that is free from the curse. The key in all our work that turns it from curse to blessing, and the key that glorifies Christ in it, is described in 1 Peter 4:11: “[Let the one who] serves” — just say, “Let the one who works” — “[work] by the strength that God supplies — in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ.” The one who gives the strength gets the glory. We get the help, he gets the glory, and work is delivered from its burdensome cursedness.

Or here it is again in 1 Corinthians 15:10: “By the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them” — any of the other apostles — “though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me.” That’s the glory of hard work in the Christian life, just like it was before the fall. I don’t doubt that Adam gloried in a long day’s work in the garden, making it perfectly suitable to his needs, flourishing in all his efforts. “Not I, but the grace of God with me” — that takes away the misery of burdensomeness and futility.

Whatever You Do

When Paul calls us to do lots of work as Christians, he’s not calling us to a burdened, frustrated, cursed life. He’s calling us to our glory and our joy. First Corinthians 15:58: “Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord” — I think that means doing lots of it — “knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.” It’s not futile. I think that applies to any work done in the name of Jesus, for the glory of Jesus, in reliance upon the power of Jesus — not just church work, all work.

In fact, Paul says in Colossians 3:23–24, “Whatever [that’s an important word] you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ.” So that elevates all of our work — not just church work, but all of our work — to the level of worship. If we do it in the name of the Lord, in reliance on the Lord, for the glory of the Lord, it’s not mere human work; it’s divine work. It honors Christ.

I’ll say it again. From the beginning, we were made for work — shaping, creating, subduing the world according to the wisdom and goodness and beauty of God. This was not — it is not — a curse; it is a blessing. And I think it will last happily forever.

http://rss.desiringgod.org/link/10732/15042930/give-thanks-for-everything-really