Time

to

THINK.

A novel idea in the days of social media and AI.

In a world crowded with distractions, with a deluge of technology that allows, nay encourages, abdication, “thinking time” can become extinct.

Thinking time is something a praying creator must covet so fervently he or she will lock the doors and, for seasons, throw away the key.

Those seasons can look like 20 minutes of uninterrupted silence, a day walking on the hills, or a week without devices. It could be a month where urgent gives place to important, or at the radical edge of the spectrum, a year of deep introspective course correction.

Do you take time not to do?

Is “do nothing” squarely on your to do list, knowing how fruitful “not doing” can be?

To simply sit with your thoughts.

To carefully consider the trajectory you are taking.

To ponder purpose.

Lean into life design rather than defer to the defaults?

The problem is this.

“Thinking time” takes time.

Thinking time is not just the moment of an idea strikes or an insight pops. That only takes a second.

But to get there you have to wait. Patiently.

Let the noise subside.

Pause long enough for the messy mud of urgent irrelevance to sink to the bottom of the jar, leaving the liquid of your thought life clear enough to see through.

Like a bottle of clear water with dirt in, shaken it will be opaque. That’s your brain. Shaken daily by demands and disruption.

The only way to get clear is to leave that sucker sitting long enough for the mess to come to rest.

Proverbs 20:5 tells us that thoughts are like deep waters:

​"The purposes of a person's heart are deep waters, but one who has insight draws them out"

‘Thinking time’ is one of the buckets you can use to draw something fresh and clear.

Block it out in your schedule.

Add “do nothing” to your to do list.

Long enough for quietness to alight on your mind.

Like a dove, the still, small song of freedom will speak in your ear.

“Incline your ear, and come unto me: hear, and your soul shall live;” (Isaiah 55:3 KJV)