Silence and Solitude: Hearing God When Everything Around You Is Shouting

Notifications. Screens. Podcasts. Scrolling. Opinions. You live surrounded by noise. And sometimes, even when everything around you goes quiet, it keeps shouting on the inside.

In this episode 11 of the Replica podcast, Dave Pothier and Baptiste take the time to tackle one of the biggest obstacles to living as a disciple in 2026: noise. An issue that muffles the voice of God, that steals your attention, that blocks worship. And above all, they share with you the transformative practice that answers this problem: silence and solitude, the way Jesus himself lived them.

Jesus said it himself: "My sheep hear my voice, and they follow me" (John 10:27). But to hear the still small whisper of God, you need to learn to quiet the noise. This article offers you a diagnosis, a biblical framework, and very concrete steps to get started, even in an overloaded daily life.

Article outline

1. Noise, enemy number one of spiritual life in 2026
2. A diagnosis: are you under the grip of noise?
3. Outer noise and inner noise
4. Silence and solitude: the practice of Jesus
5. How to practice concretely (the 10 minutes that change everything)
6. The fruits of silence and solitude
7. The danger: a self-centered spirituality
8. Dream big, start small

1. Noise, enemy number one of spiritual life in 2026

You live in a hyperconnected era. And that hyperconnection creates constant distraction. As author Ronald Rolheiser put it, today "we are more distracted than bad." It is not that you are not a sinner: it is that you are so distracted that distraction itself comes and steals your spiritual life.

Distraction steals your attention in the present moment. And without attention, no worship. It is as simple as that.

C. S. Lewis had already written, in The Screwtape Letters, that the devil's kingdom was "the kingdom of noise." The enemy's goal, he writes, is to turn the whole universe into one great noise. What Lewis observed in his day, you live at a tenfold scale today. And the worst part is that if the enemy cannot make you fall into sin, he will try to distract you to the point where you no longer have time to think about God.

Remember boredom. That word your generation, or your children's generation, no longer knows. And yet, it is often in boredom that the most beautiful thoughts are born, real reflection, connection with your soul. When you are bored, you look inward. And when you look inward, you have a much better chance of looking up toward God.

2. A diagnosis: are you under the grip of noise?

Here are a few symptoms suggested by Baptiste. This is not an exact science, but if you recognize yourself in several of these, there is a good chance noise has taken up too much space:

• You feel distant from God.
• You feel distant from yourself, as if in a fog, not really authentic with yourself.
• You are anxious, even if you have not been diagnosed with generalized anxiety.
• You are exhausted, you wake up tired in the morning without any obvious physical reason.
• You take refuge in escapes: binging Netflix, endless scrolling on social media, series on repeat.
• You are weak against temptation, very reactive, and your old addictive behaviors are coming back.

This diagnosis is not here to make you feel guilty. It is here to tell you one thing: if you recognize yourself in it, you are not a bad Christian. You are simply someone who needs to quiet the noise.

3. Outer noise and inner noise

There are two levels of noise. Outer noise, you know it well: it is your phone, music, podcasts, kids, notifications. With some discipline, you can quiet a good chunk of it.

But when you unplug all of that, you quickly realize there is another noise, even louder: inner noise. That chaos of voices talking inside you. Outer silence is not enough: it often only reveals the inner racket. And that is exactly why the practice of silence and solitude is so necessary. It teaches you to quiet both, one after the other.

Andrew Sullivan, the American author, wrote a striking article titled I Used to Be a Human Being. After a stay at a digital detox center, he put forward this hypothesis: if faith is declining in Western societies, it may not be because science has disproven faith. It may simply be because we are so distracted that we end up doubting God's existence. People think they have settled the question of God, when they have only touched on it superficially, for lack of mental space to think it through deeply.

"The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God." (Psalm 14:1)

Most people are not fools. They are just too distracted to seriously ask themselves the big questions.

4. Silence and solitude: the practice of Jesus

Before diving into the how, an essential reminder: the point of transformative practices is not spiritual performance. The point is to be transformed into a person of love. A person who loves God more, and loves others more. The barometer of your love for God is your love for others.

If you leave for three days at a monastery, leaving your wife and your four kids in chaos, without having talked it through with her, the practice has become an obstacle to love. It is no longer a Christian practice, it is a selfish spirituality. Hold on to this: the practice must always serve love.

That said, where is this practice of silence rooted in the Bible?

4.1. In Jesus himself

Jesus practiced silence and solitude on a regular basis. The Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke show him at least fifteen times withdrawing to a "solitary place," the desert (eremos, in Greek), to pray. After big days. Early in the morning. Alone.

The most striking example is perhaps Matthew 4. Right after his baptism, when the Spirit had just come down on him and the Father's voice had just declared, "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased," "Jesus was led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil" (Matthew 4:1).

You could traditionally read this passage as saying Jesus was tempted because of his isolation in the wilderness. But the text clearly says it was the Spirit who led him there. And Scripture affirms that God tempts no one to evil (James 1:13). The most consistent reading, then, is that Jesus was driven into the wilderness not in a moment of weakness, but to be strengthened before the great trial awaiting him. Forty days of silence, solitude, fasting, and prayer as preparation for the temptation. The wilderness was not his place of weakness: it was his place of greatest spiritual strength.

4.2. In the Old Testament and the Psalms

This practice is also present in embryonic form in the Old Testament, especially in the Psalms: "Truly my soul waiteth upon God in silence" (Psalm 62:1). Elijah's encounter with God in the still small voice, after the wind, the earthquake, and the fire, is another striking example (1 Kings 19:11-13).

Spiritual depth and vigor, Baptiste says, cannot exist without silence and solitude. It is a conviction built through his own life: when there is too much noise, he becomes anxious, short tempered, he misreads what others say, he snaps for no reason. Silence is not a pious option. It is a vital need for the disciple.

5. How to practice concretely (the 10 minutes that change everything)

Baptiste tells how he started this practice in 2020, during a very difficult season. Before that, he thought silence "was for monks in monasteries, for somewhat strange people." Then he started, just 10 minutes a day, before his Bible reading and his prayer time. Result: "I felt like I was going to sink, like I was going to drown. Just 10 minutes a day started bringing me back to the surface."

5.1. Set a timer

This is a detail that matters. Without a timer, you will spend your time checking the clock. With the timer, you can settle in: if it feels like an hour has passed when only a minute has gone by, it does not matter. The timer will go off.

5.2. Be in contemplation before Jesus (not in a void)

Silence is not "thinking about nothing." Nobody really manages that. It is instead a time of contemplation. You settle before Jesus, in an attitude of surrender and listening.

An image Baptiste uses: imagine you are on a boat, and you dive in. All your thoughts are the noise at the surface of the water. The deeper you go, the more those thoughts drift away and fade. It is just an image, but it helps you picture what you are trying to do.

5.3. When a thought comes up, bring it back to Christ

Be honest: as soon as you start, your mind runs off in every direction. The to-do list, texts to send, your schedule, a conversation that upset you, thoughts you are not proud of, the urge to go get a glass of water. Everything pops up.

Here is the approach: when a thought comes, try to address the why. "I'm thinking about my work, about my to-do list: that's because I have a control problem. Lord, everything is in your hands." "I'm thinking about that person: that's because I'm comparing myself to them. Lord, my identity is in you." Every thought becomes an opportunity to bring you back to Christ.

Thomas Keating, one of the fathers of contemplative prayer, used to tell of a woman he coached who complained after a 20 minute session: "I can't do it, I had ten thousand thoughts pulling me away from God." His answer: "That's good news: that gives you ten thousand opportunities to come back to God." Do not beat yourself up. Always bring your attention back to Christ.

5.4. Expect the still small whisper

God sometimes speaks with a voice like thunder. But most of the time, in everyday life, it is the still small whisper that pierces your heart. If God whispers, it may not be so that we cannot hear him: it may be the only way to pierce through the noise surrounding us. Silence is the space that makes you able to hear.

A simple story: a man went every day to a church, sat down, said nothing, then left. Intrigued, the priest finally asked him what he was doing. His answer: "I look at God, God looks at me, and we are happy." That is silence and solitude.

5.5. Find what works for your season

Are you a mom or dad of four young kids in a small apartment? You do not have the same options as a single person. Here are a few ideas:

• In the morning, taking turns with your spouse: each of you takes 30 minutes alone in the park while the other watches the kids.
• On your bike on the way to work.
• In your car, with the radio off, even if just for 10 minutes.
• On the subway, with noise cancelling headphones.
• In the bathroom, if you have nowhere else to go. Baptiste tells how, at one point, his wife would lock herself in there for 5 minutes just to breathe with God.
• For those who can, a 3 day retreat at a monastery. A deeply transformative experience.

6. The fruits of silence and solitude

6.1. You face the real you

When you go quiet before God, your spiritual condition in the moment comes to the surface: impure thoughts, misplaced ambitions, comparisons, jealousy, bitterness, frustrations. It is not your identity that gets revealed, your identity is in Christ. It is your condition in that moment. But when these things come up, you are laid bare before God, you can no longer lie to yourself. And that is exactly where you can receive his grace and his love, no longer as a Christian putting on a show, but as a real man, a real woman, before a real God.

6.2. Your will surrenders to God's

Silence is a space where you are "broken before God." All those little pockets of resistance in you, that thought you want to keep, that attitude you defend, that project you want to hold on to against the Holy Spirit's inner conviction, are brought into the light. And you can finally say, with Jesus: "Not my will, but thine, be done."

6.3. The remedy for overwork and isolation

Dallas Willard said: "The best remedy for overwork is solitude and silence, for there you find you are more than what you do. And the best remedy for isolation is solitude and silence, for there you find you are never alone." Two opposite problems, one same solution.

7. The danger: a self-centered spirituality

There is a real danger with this practice, especially in a culture as self-centered as ours. Silence and solitude can become an excuse to feed your self-centeredness, particularly if you have an introverted temperament.

Jesus never took these moments in order to stay there. It was always a dance: he would withdraw, then return to the community to love in action. A self-centered spirituality is not a Christian spirituality. Christian spirituality is centered on Jesus Christ, and its visible fruit is love for others.

If your practice of silence makes you harder on your family, more impatient with your coworkers, less available to the people God puts in your path, then the practice has turned against its own purpose. The real test is: do I love more?

8. Dream big, start small

Do not set goals that are too big. Do not aim for 45 minutes of daily silence when you have never done any. Start with one minute. Five minutes. Ten minutes.

One minute of silence is not a watered down version of the practice: it is a real practice, with atomic potential. Dream big, start small.

Key takeaways

• Noise is enemy number one of your spiritual life in 2026. We are "more distracted than bad."
• The symptoms of noise: distance from God, anxiety, exhaustion, escapism, returning temptations.
• You need to learn to quiet outer noise in order to then quiet inner noise.
• Jesus practiced silence and solitude at least fifteen times in the Gospels. It is not optional.
• 10 minutes a day, with a timer, in contemplation before Jesus, can transform your spiritual season.
• Silence is never an end in itself. The fruit is a greater love for God and for others.

Personal application

1. Looking at the diagnosis above (distance from God, anxiety, exhaustion, escapism, weakness against temptation), which of these symptoms do you recognize the most in yourself right now?
2. Where in your day could you fit a 10 minute moment of silence starting tomorrow morning? (Bike, car with the radio off, before your Bible reading, in the bathroom: be creative.)
3. When you go quiet before God, what thoughts come back the most? What do they reveal about what you are trying to control on your own?
4. Is there a "pocket of resistance" in your life that you are still defending even though the Holy Spirit is inviting you to let go?
5. Does your current spiritual practice make you more loving toward the people around you? If not, what adjustment is God asking of you?

Verses cited

• John 10:27 · "My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me."
• Matthew 4:1-2 · "Jesus was led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil."
• Mark 1:35 · "And in the morning, rising up a great while before day, he went out, and departed into a solitary place, and there prayed."
• Luke 5:16 · "And he withdrew himself into the wilderness, and prayed."
• Psalm 62:1 · "Truly my soul waiteth upon God in silence."
• Psalm 14:1 · "The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God."
• 1 Kings 19:11-13 · Elijah and the still small voice.
• James 1:13 · "God tempts no one."

FAQ

Do I need to practice silence every day?

Baptiste recommends starting with a daily appointment, even a short one (5 to 10 minutes). What matters is not the length, but the regularity. Depending on your season of life, this practice can also take the form of longer moments (a morning, half a day) or yearly retreats. In an intense season (a new baby, grief, a transition), be creative and merciful toward yourself: one minute is still a real practice.

What do I do when it feels like I can only think about my worries?

That is normal, it happens to everyone. Do not beat yourself up. Every thought that comes up is an opportunity to bring it back to Christ. Try to identify what that thought reveals (need for control, comparison, fear, misplaced ambition), then lay it before God with a short prayer, and return to your contemplation.

Isn't silence dangerous? You could be pushed toward strange thoughts.

Christian silence is not a void where you "let anything in." It is a time of contemplation before Jesus, anchored in Scripture and in community. It is very different from certain Eastern meditative practices that try to empty the mind. Here, you fill your mind with Christ, you do not empty it.

I am an introvert and I love this, does that mean I'm not in a real Christian silence?

Be careful. The test is love. If your practice makes you more loving toward your family, your spouse, your coworkers, your church, that is a good sign. If it feeds your self-centeredness and your withdrawal, that is a warning sign. The practice must always send you back toward others, like Jesus who always came back down from the mountain to love in action.