There was a sign at the entrance to our cabin on Lake Superior with one simple word on it:
RELAX.
It couldn’t have been more appropriate.
We hadn’t been to Lake Superior in about five years, and I knew before we left that I needed the time away. Not because something was terribly wrong. Not because I wanted to run away from my life. I simply needed to unplug.
And this cabin gave us the perfect place to do it.
Lake Superior was on one side, and woods surrounded us everywhere else. We were completely secluded. No neighbors nearby. No traffic going past. No normal sounds of everyday life surrounding us. Just the lake, the trees, the wildlife, the changing sky, and a kind of quiet that is difficult to find when life is moving at its usual pace.
I love what I do. I love the people in my life. I love serving, coaching, encouraging, connecting, and being involved. But I also know myself well enough to recognize that I can keep going. There is always one more thing I can do, one more person I can help, one more conversation I can have, one more problem I can think about.
Sometimes even good things become noise when there are too many of them competing for our attention.
That time away reminded me how necessary it is to intentionally step out of the noise once in a while.
Quiet Is More Than the Absence of Sound
When I talk about getting quiet, I don’t mean we all need to find a secluded cabin on Lake Superior. As wonderful as that was, most of us can’t disappear into the woods every time life gets busy.
And quiet isn’t simply the absence of sound.
We can sit in a completely silent room and still have a very noisy mind. We can leave our phone in another room and spend the next hour mentally going through tomorrow’s schedule. We can sit beside a beautiful lake while replaying yesterday’s conversation or trying to solve next week’s problem.
We can stop moving without ever becoming still.
I think that distinction matters.
Psalm 46:10 says, “Be still, and know that I am God.”
I’ve heard that verse countless times. Maybe you have too. But sitting beside Lake Superior, surrounded by God’s creation, gave those words room to settle differently.
Stillness asks something of me that simply stopping does not. It asks me to loosen my grip on what I have been carrying long enough to recognize that I don’t have to manage everything every minute. I don’t have to have an answer for every question. I don’t have to solve tomorrow before it arrives or fill every open space with something productive.
Sometimes I can simply be still and remember who God is.
Creation Has a Way of Getting My Attention
I have always connected deeply with God through nature.
There is something about standing near a body of water that stretches farther than I can see, listening to waves hit the shore, looking up through trees that have been growing for decades, or watching the light change across the water that puts things back into perspective for me.
None of it is asking anything from me.
The lake doesn’t need me to fix it. The trees don’t need my advice. The sky doesn’t care what’s on my calendar.
God’s creation simply is.
And when I slow down enough to notice it, I am reminded of the One who created it.
Romans 1:20 tells us that God’s invisible qualities, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen through what He has made. Creation points beyond itself to its Creator.
I experienced that again at Lake Superior. I wasn’t looking at the lake instead of looking to God. I was seeing evidence of God in what He created: His magnitude, creativity, order, beauty, and power.
Lake Superior is enormous. Standing beside it has a way of reminding me that I am not. And strangely enough, I find comfort in that.
I don’t need to be big enough to carry everything. God already is.
What Happens When Nothing Needs Your Attention?
One of the things I noticed during those days was how unusual it felt to have so little demanding my attention.
There wasn’t another place I needed to be. I wasn’t moving from one commitment to another. I wasn’t surrounded by the usual activity of everyday life.
I could sit.
I could watch the water.
I could listen.
I could notice.
And I could spend time with God without needing that time to produce an answer.
Of course I still talked with my heavenly Father. I prayed. But there were also moments when I didn’t need to bring Him a question to solve or a decision to help me make. I could simply be aware of Him and grateful for what was around me.
That reminded me of something I can easily forget when life gets full: not every moment with God needs an agenda.
Sometimes being present is enough.
And perhaps that’s part of what our constant noise takes from us. It isn’t only silence that disappears. Our attention becomes divided.
God Wasn’t More Present at Lake Superior
It would be easy to come home from a place like that and think, I feel so much closer to God there.
But God wasn’t more present at Lake Superior than He is in my everyday life.
He is just as present with me at home. He is present in my office, on my walks, in conversations, in the middle of a full day, and when life feels anything but peaceful.
The difference is often my attention.
At the cabin, many of the things that normally compete for it had been removed. I didn’t have to work as hard to notice the sound of the water because little else was making noise. I could look at the trees without simultaneously thinking about where I needed to be next.
It made me wonder how much I miss, not because God isn’t present, but because my attention is somewhere else.
What am I noticing?
What am I listening to?
What have I allowed to become so loud that I no longer notice what has been there all along?
Those questions aren’t meant to become another assignment. For me, they are an invitation to pay attention.
Because we don’t only live with external noise. Sometimes the loudest place is inside our own minds. We replay conversations, anticipate problems, plan what comes next, worry about people we love, think about work, and carry things that aren’t ours to solve.
We can become so accustomed to that internal noise that we don’t even recognize it as noise anymore.
Until we get quiet.
We Don’t Have to Earn the Quiet
There will always be a reason not to step away.
There will always be work that isn’t finished, a person who needs something, an email that could be answered, a task that could be completed, or something else we could be doing.
If we wait until everything is done before allowing ourselves to rest, we may be waiting a very long time.
Jesus didn’t wait until no one needed Him before He withdrew to quiet places to pray. The needs were still there. The people were still there. Yet He intentionally stepped away.
That matters to me.
There is a difference between avoiding our lives and intentionally stepping away from them for a time. One is escape. The other can be necessary.
I knew I needed to unplug before we went to Lake Superior. What I hadn’t fully recognized was how much noise I had become accustomed to carrying with me.
Sometimes we need enough distance from our normal rhythm to recognize what that rhythm has been doing to us.
Quiet Doesn’t Have to Look Like Lake Superior
I am grateful we had the opportunity to get away. I needed those days with Lake Superior on one side of me and the woods on the other.
But I also know I can’t depend on a cabin to create stillness for me.
Maybe your quiet place is a park. Maybe it’s your backyard, an early morning walk, a chair beside a window, or a few minutes outside before the day begins.
The location isn’t the point.
The intention is.
We have to be willing to create some room in lives that will gladly fill every available space if we let them.
Sometimes that means turning something off. Sometimes it means putting something down. Sometimes it means walking away from the list before everything on it has been crossed off.
And sometimes it simply means becoming still enough to notice.
That little sign at our cabin said RELAX.
I thought I understood what I needed when we arrived. I needed the quiet. I needed to unplug. I needed time surrounded by God’s creation with nothing demanding my attention.
And I did need all of that.
What I didn’t expect was that the quiet wouldn’t only affect my time there.
It would change what I noticed when I came home.