What little boy hasn’t dreamed of being a treasure hunter? Of finding that lost chest of gold buried on some remote island or hidden in a mountain cave somewhere?
When I grew up, those dreams were exchanged for the hard truths of life. My mind shifted from hidden treasure among the seas or buried in some forgotten mountain to treasures that aren’t so obvious. Less tangible. More valuable.
As a father of four kids and a homeschool dad, I came to the realization that the greatest treasure on earth was silence. And I began searching for it with the same passion and zeal that has driven so many treasure hunters to the brink of insanity.
Any parent knows the false discoveries. They come without warning. You’re in the middle of your day and suddenly… nothing. No noise. No fighting. No crying. And instead of relief, you feel uneasy. Where are the kids? Why aren’t they fighting? Because you know, you know, that silence in a house with children means someone is doing something they shouldn’t be doing.
But still, you plan. You scheme. You imagine a moment where you can take care of life’s necessary moments alone, for the briefest of moments, without interruption, in the privacy of your bedroom or at least the sanctity of your own bathroom. And you allow yourself to dream.
Fifteen years ago, I went treasure hunting for something a little different, the ethereal and majestic Rocky Mountain elk. The hunt took me into the Flat Tops Wilderness, one of Colorado’s more remote areas, a stretch of country that doesn’t reveal itself easily. The kind of place that only gives up its secrets to the people willing to walk into it.
The aspens were past their fire. Bright reds had given way to yellows, and the yellows had faded to that muted, late-season brown that signals the door is closing on autumn. Snow was already in the high basins. The forest was preparing for what was coming.
I went in prepared to find elk, ready for whatever lions or bears might cross my path. But what I found in that emptiness was something I didn’t know how to defend against.
After hiking for miles, deep into the Colorado wilderness, I paused for a moment and realized for the first time in my life I was truly alone. My heart began to race. My inner treasure hunter came alive with the hope of finding the silence I had so long been searching for. But camp had to be made before nightfall. The treasure hunt would have to wait.
Finally, the work was done. Camp was made. And I set out on the eve of opening day to enjoy a beautiful sunset with the hope of seeing some elk, as a winter storm began to build in the distance.
The silence.
It hit me like a physical force. The forest, already sensing what was coming, had bedded down. The animals had prepared for the storm. What I didn't realize was that another storm had already enveloped me, and I wasn't prepared at all. A blanket of silence so complete, so total, so deafening surrounded me. And I was terrified.
I didn’t know what to do. I panicked. I rubbed my hands together. I began to fidget. Move. Shift. Anything to make noise. Anything to break the spell. I’d come to the wilderness seeking adventure, seeking elk. But what I found was what I had been seeking all along. Silence. And I couldn’t handle it.
I thought silence meant peace; escape from kids, chaos, demands. But there was nothing peaceful about that moment. The silence didn't quiet anything, it exposed everything.
In that deafening quiet, the real noise arrived: my own.
Worries. Failures. Voices I'd drowned out for years. Fears I had avoided. Things I hadn't allowed myself to hear.
I had grown up reading “be still and know that I am God” and assumed it was simple. Sit quietly. Pray. Listen. Easy.
The Bible hadn’t lied to me.
I had lied to myself about what it was asking of me.
So I sat in that moment of uncomfortable silence, struggling to know what to do with all that was being felt and seen for the first time. I wasn’t prepared. I didn’t have the right questions or the right tools to deal with this other type of noise that I found in the silence.
By morning, my buddy had arrived, and the silence vanished with the sound of another voice.
But that small glimpse of true silence was real. And maybe instead of searching so hard for it, I needed to make room for it and let it come to me. And most importantly, be prepared the next time I saw it.
God doesn’t just tell us to be still. He says, “Be still and know that I am God.”
You can’t have a relationship with someone in the midst of noise and chaos. God wants to have a relationship with us. He wants to know us. He wants us to know Him. And that can only happen in the still, quiet moments of our life.
Knowing requires listening. Listening requires stillness. And stillness requires courage: the courage to face what you’ve been running from, to hear the voices you’ve been drowning out, to sit in the discomfort instead of filling it with noise.
I’m not good at this yet. I still panic when silence finds me. I still look for a way out before it has a chance to settle in. Because when it does, I hear things I’ve spent a long time trying to drown out.
And I don’t always have the courage to sit with them.
But that day on the hillside gave me hope. It reminded me God is there in the silence, waiting. Not to condemn, but to meet me. To know me. To heal what I've been too busy to let Him touch.
I suppose as the old saying goes: careful what you look for. You may actually find it.
Turns out the Bible is right.
— J. Michael Weems