The following is a brief excerpt from my new book, Rewired: How Using Today’s Technology Can Bring You Back to Deeper Relationships, Real Conversations, and Powerful Ways to Share God’s Love, available at a bookstore near you.
Silence has a tendency to ruin things—not everything, mind you. We often need to cultivate silence in our lives in intentional ways for the health of our minds, bodies, and spirits, especially in this day and age, when so much clamors for our attention.
But we were made by our Creator to connect with others, and intimacy is a deep and abiding need of every human heart. We need to know and be known.
And so, it is time to speak. It is time to connect. It is time for us to emerge from our cocoons to engage the rest of the world in a silence-shattering conversation about eternal things. Silence fosters oppression, but you can speak up for those without a voice. Silence traps people in shame, but your voice can communicate grace to those trapped in sin. Silence endangers and threatens to destroy delicate relationships, but you can say the words needed for healing. It’s time to speak.
Not only is it time to speak, it’s also time to get loud. I believe we have something of eternal value to share. The gospel is worthy of a hearing in the public square and the private coffee shop conversation. And here’s the good news: it is altogether possible that our culture’s renewed emphasis on social networking and personalization may help create the capacity to fight the problem of silence more effectively.
The good news of Jesus is life changing, and if new tools have been handed to us that provide the power to spread the message farther, then let us speak with enthusiasm. Jesus said it this way: “What I tell you now in the darkness, shout abroad when daybreak comes. What I whisper in your ear, shout from the housetops for all to hear!” (Matt. 10:27).
Let’s break the silence!
