EREMOS: Rediscovering the God Who Meets Us in the Quiet

How we traded the silence that shapes our souls for the noise that slowly reshapes our lives.

There was a time when silence was simply part of being human. You could drive somewhere without listening to anything. Sit on a porch without checking anything. Stand in a grocery store line without reaching for something. You could eat a meal, take a walk, or lie in bed at night with nothing but your own thoughts. Today, silence almost feels unnatural.

We wake up to alarms, reach for our phones, scroll through headlines, listen to podcasts, answer messages, respond to notifications, and move through our days accompanied by an almost uninterrupted stream of information.

Even when the world around us grows quiet, the noise inside our heads rarely does.

We have become remarkably connected and yet increasingly distracted. We have unprecedented access to information but often struggle to find wisdom. We know what is happening everywhere, but sometimes have difficulty recognizing what is happening within ourselves. And somewhere along the way, we have confused being constantly stimulated with being fully alive.

We were meant to be shaped in silence, but we are increasingly being reshaped by the maddening noise of our age.

Perhaps this is why one small Greek word in the Gospels deserves our attention.

Eremos: The Place Jesus Kept Returning To

In Mark 1:35, we read: “Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed.”

The Greek word translated “solitary” is erēmos (ἔρημος). It describes a deserted, uninhabited, or wilderness place, somewhere away from the activity and crowds of ordinary life.

It is important to understand that the word itself does not mean prayer or spiritual silence. It describes the location. But the Gospel writers repeatedly show us what Jesus did in such places.

He withdrew. He prayed. He cultivated communion with the Father away from the demands and expectations of the crowds. And the context makes this fascinating.

Mark chapter 1 describes Jesus’ ministry exploding into public view. He is teaching with authority, casting out unclean spirits, healing the sick, and attracting enormous attention.

By evening, Mark tells us, the whole town had gathered at the door (Mark 1:33). Imagine the excitement. The possibilities. The momentum.

If Jesus had a modern ministry consultant, someone probably would have told Him to capitalize on the moment. Build the platform. Increase visibility. Keep the crowds engaged.

Instead, Jesus gets up before sunrise and disappears into the wilderness to pray. And when Simon and the others finally find Him, they announce: “Everyone is looking for you!” (Mark 1:37).

There is something almost humorous about that statement. Everybody wants something from Jesus, and Jesus is somewhere quiet, praying. What strikes me is that Jesus does not allow the urgency of the crowd to determine the direction of His life.

His identity is not established by public approval. His mission is not dictated by popularity. He does not confuse being needed with being led. And this was no isolated incident.

Luke 5:15–16 tells us that the news about Jesus spread, crowds gathered to hear Him and be healed, and yet He frequently withdrew into the wilderness to pray.

Notice the pattern. As the crowds increased, Jesus continued withdrawing. Not because He didn’t love people, but precisely because His life was rooted in something deeper than the expectations of people. The wilderness was not a rejection of His mission. It was part of the rhythm through which He lived it.

Jesus knew how to be fully present with people because He also knew how to be intentionally alone with the Father.

And perhaps we have overlooked how important that rhythm is.

The Devil’s Favorite Sound

In 1942, C. S. Lewis published The Screwtape Letters, a brilliant work of satire written from the perspective of a senior demon advising a younger demon on how to lead a human being away from God.

In Letter 22, Screwtape expresses his hatred of two things: “Music and silence — how I detest them both!” He then celebrates noise, calling it “the grand dynamism.”

Lewis understood something profound about distraction long before smartphones, social media, and twenty-four-hour news cycles.

Noise can become a way of avoiding the deepest questions of our existence.

If we never stop, we never have to examine where we are going.

If we never become quiet, we never have to confront what is happening inside us.

If every uncomfortable emotion can be interrupted by entertainment, every moment of boredom filled with stimulation, and every difficult question drowned beneath another opinion, we can spend an entire lifetime avoiding the very things that need our attention.

And isn’t that remarkably close to the world we inhabit? We have created an environment in which almost every silent moment is treated as a problem that technology must solve. But what if silence is not a problem? What if it is a gift?

What if the very moments we keep trying to fill are the moments in which our souls are most in need of attention? I am not suggesting that technology is evil or that music, podcasts, and conversation are somehow spiritually inferior. Some of those things enrich our lives tremendously. The problem is not sound itself.

The problem begins when we become so dependent upon constant stimulation that we no longer know how to be still.

Lewis wrote about the spiritual danger of noise more than eight decades ago. I wonder what he would say about a world where almost everyone carries an endless supply of it in their pocket.

What Constant Noise Is Doing to Us

Interestingly, modern research gives us reasons to take this concern seriously.

In a 2015 study published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, researchers found that simply receiving cell phone notifications could significantly disrupt performance on attention-demanding tasks, even when participants did not pick up their phones.

Think about that. The interruption was affecting attention even without someone answering it.

Another study, published in the Journal of the Association for Consumer Research in 2017, found that the mere presence of a person’s smartphone could reduce available cognitive capacity during certain tasks.

Researchers called this phenomenon “brain drain.”

Our attention is a limited resource, and the continual possibility of interruption may consume more of it than we realize.

The World Health Organization has also documented how excessive environmental noise can contribute to sleep disturbances, cardiovascular problems, and impaired cognitive functioning. Of course, the research on physical environmental noise is not identical to research on digital distraction, but both remind us that the conditions surrounding us can affect our well-being.

And perhaps one of the most important questions is not simply what constant stimulation is doing to our brains.

It is what our habits of attention are doing to our souls. Because attention is not merely a neurological function. It is also a spiritual practice.

Whatever continually captures our attention can influence our desires, our attitudes, our fears, and eventually the way we perceive the world. We become accustomed to outrage because outrage surrounds us. We become anxious about things we cannot control because they constantly demand our awareness. We compare our ordinary lives with the curated lives of strangers. And gradually, without realizing it, the noise begins setting the emotional atmosphere of our existence.

We are not necessarily becoming more informed.

Sometimes we are simply becoming more agitated.

We are reacting more and reflecting less.

Consuming more and contemplating less.

Hearing more voices while becoming increasingly unfamiliar with the quiet voice of wisdom.

We cannot continually surrender our attention to everything around us and expect it to have no influence upon what is developing within us.

This is why the practice of solitude matters.

Not because it magically solves anxiety or makes every problem disappear, but because it creates room for something our world rarely encourages: Undivided attention.

He Leads Me Beside Still Waters

One of the most beloved passages in all Scripture is Psalm 23.

“The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.”

David continues: “He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul.” (Psalm 23:1–3, KJV)

The Hebrew expression translated “still waters” is mê menuchot, literally carrying the sense of waters of rest or resting places. Notice what the Shepherd does. He leads. He provides. He restores. The sheep do not produce the pasture. They do not create the water. They do not manufacture their own restoration. They receive what the shepherd provides.

That is an important distinction because even rest can become another religious performance if we are not careful.

We can turn solitude into another discipline by which we measure our spirituality, another achievement to pursue, another way to feel guilty about not doing enough. But Psalm 23 is not a picture of sheep struggling to earn rest. It is a picture of a shepherd who knows what His sheep need. And there is something deeply comforting about that.

God does not merely command us to rest. He invites us into the rest His presence provides.

The still waters are not a reward for those who have worked hard enough.

They are part of the Shepherd’s care.

Which brings us to the beautiful words of Jesus in Matthew 11:28–29: “Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest … and you will find rest for your souls.”

Jesus is echoing an ancient biblical promise. In Jeremiah 6:16, God calls His people to walk in the good way, where they will find rest for their souls.

Now Jesus stands before weary people, burdened by life and religious expectations, and invites them to find that rest in Him. This is more than an invitation to take a vacation. It is an invitation to live differently. To exchange the exhausting burden of trying to prove ourselves for the freedom of living in the love and presence of God.

It is an invitation to discover that our value is not determined by productivity, popularity, or performance. And the astonishing thing is that Jesus offers this rest while also inviting us to follow Him. His rest is not the absence of responsibility. It is a different way of carrying it.

Solitude Is Not Isolation

We need to make an important distinction. Solitude and isolation are not the same thing.

Isolation can disconnect us from healthy relationships and deepen loneliness. Solitude, when freely chosen and practiced wisely, can create space for reflection, emotional regulation, prayer, and renewal.

A 2023 study examining people’s daily experiences of solitude found that time spent alone was associated with lower stress and greater feelings of autonomy, while also identifying possible costs to loneliness and life satisfaction. Importantly, choosing solitude made a difference.

The lesson is not that everyone needs more time alone regardless of circumstances.

It is that healthy human life requires rhythms of both connection and withdrawal. And we see precisely this rhythm in Jesus. He was not a recluse.

He attended celebrations, shared meals, engaged difficult conversations, loved people, healed the hurting, and participated fully in the human experience.

Yet He also withdrew. He moved toward the crowds and away from the crowds.

He engaged the world without allowing its demands to consume His identity. Perhaps this is one of the great lessons of erēmos.

Solitude is not escaping the world because we do not care. It is making room for God’s presence so that we can return to the world with greater clarity, compassion, and love.

The purpose is not withdrawal for its own sake. The purpose is communion that transforms the way we live.

What If the Silence Feels Uncomfortable?

Here is where the invitation becomes challenging.

Many of us do not actually enjoy silence when we first encounter it.

We sit down to pray, and suddenly remember seventeen things we need to do.

We put our phones away, and within minutes feel the urge to check them.

We try to quiet our minds, and discover just how much unresolved anxiety, frustration, grief, or uncertainty we have been carrying.

Sometimes what we call boredom is really our discomfort with being alone with ourselves.

And perhaps that is one of the reasons we resist silence. Because in the quiet, there is nothing left to distract us from what is happening within. But that does not mean we should be afraid of it.

The God revealed in Jesus Christ is not waiting in the silence to condemn us for everything we discover there. He meets us with grace. We can bring our distracted minds, restless thoughts, unanswered questions, and exhausted emotions into His presence. We do not have to achieve perfect stillness before God draws near. We are invited to discover His nearness even in our restlessness. And slowly, as we develop new habits, the quiet can become less threatening.

Not because every troubling thought disappears, but because we discover we do not have to face those thoughts alone.

Learning to Return to Eremos

So what might this look like in everyday life? For most of us, withdrawing into an actual wilderness every morning is not realistic. There are children to care for, jobs to work, responsibilities to fulfill, and people who depend upon us. But erēmos does not have to begin with a desert.

It can begin with ten minutes in a chair before the rest of the house wakes up.

A walk without headphones.

A drive without the radio.

A lunch break without scrolling.

An evening when we put the phone in another room and simply sit with God.

Not every quiet moment has to produce a spiritual revelation.

We do not have to turn solitude into another opportunity to accomplish something. Sometimes the most transformative thing we can do is simply become available.

Read a short passage of Scripture and sit with it.

Pray without rushing to fill every moment with words.

Pay attention to what is happening inside you.

Notice the beauty of creation.

Remember that you are loved before you accomplish anything today.

And when your mind wanders, gently return.

No condemnation. No performance. No pressure.

Just the ongoing practice of learning to be present.

Because the goal of silence is not to make us more impressive Christians.

It is to make us more attentive human beings. People who can listen rather than merely react. People who can respond with compassion rather than hostility. People who are not controlled by every headline, notification, criticism, or demand. People whose inner lives are becoming rooted in something more enduring than the chaos surrounding them.

The Invitation Is Still There

I keep returning to the image of Jesus in Mark chapter 1.

The crowds are growing. People are searching for Him. There are needs to meet, expectations to satisfy, and opportunities everywhere. And while it is still dark, Jesus gets up and walks into the quiet.

He knows where to go. He knows whose voice matters. And He knows that His life does not have to be governed by the noise around Him.

I think many of us are hungry for that kind of life.

Not a life without responsibilities, interruptions, or challenges, but a life with a deeper center.

A life where peace is not dependent upon everything around us finally becoming peaceful.

A life where our souls are not constantly being pulled in a hundred directions.

A life in which we are learning to recognize the presence of God right here, in the middle of ordinary existence.

Psalm 46:10 says, “Be still, and know that I am God.”

In its original context, this is God’s command to cease striving amid the chaos and conflict of the nations and recognize His sovereignty.

But the invitation still speaks powerfully to us.

Stop. Release your grip. Recognize who God is. And remember that the world does not rest upon your shoulders.

Maybe what our souls need most is not another podcast, another opinion, another article, or another notification.

Maybe we need to rediscover the ancient wisdom of the wilderness.

The erēmos. The quiet place. The place where we stop performing, stop reacting, stop consuming, and simply become aware of the God who has never stopped being present.

Because the Shepherd has not stopped leading. The still waters have not disappeared. And the invitation of Jesus remains: Come to Me, and you will find rest for your souls.

The world will always have another noise demanding your attention. But the Shepherd is still inviting you beside still waters.

Perhaps it is time to follow Him there.