How the Decision to "Not Think" Helped Me

Meditation is not a new idea. God told us a long time ago that our mind needs to be rested.

Last Friday I had an opportunity to spend several hours completely alone in the Canadian forest. I made a decision to use a portion of that time refusing to think. Sound crazy? Here’s why.

First, let me explain how I ended up in Canada. A year ago I was invited to go on what my friend Tom Vietti calls a “Men’s Extreme Wilderness Trip” to Algonquin Provincial Park in Ontario, Canada. Tom is the youth pastor at Calvary Baptist Church in York, PA and a long time friend. I went on this trip in September 2014 so I was excited to repeat the trip again last week with five other men. The park is a forest that consists of 2400 lakes and covers 3000 square miles. We entered the forest with canoes and backpacks on Sunday and came out of the woods the following Saturday.

Living in the woods for seven days has a lot of benefits. Unplugging from the cell phone, computer and the normal routine is certainly a plus. Hiking and canoeing everyday is great exercise and sleeping under the stars is amazing… especially this far north where the stars are brighter than anything you can imagine.

Friday was day six and what we called “solo day.” It’s a day we pre-scheduled to separate from each other and spend several hours alone with God.

Part of “solo day” would be spent reviewing all the lessons we had discussed from studying Philemon during the week and writing a recap of those lessons in our journals.

We spent day six on an island on Happy Isle Lake. I took a hike to the other side of the island to be alone with my Bible and journal. I found a bench made from a log with the top cut flat. I sat on the log bench and started to read and write in my journal… but I felt compelled to STOP.

So I laid down on the bench and began to realize something. I can spend the next couple of hours reading, writing, thinking and processing all kinds of information that is flooding through my mind from the week. I can work hard to compartmentalize all the experiences from the week… the view of the stars at night, the lessons learned from physical exertion, and the friendships I had developed. But what I really needed was not going to come by doing this. What I really needed was not a couple more hours spent in the process of THINKING but I needed to spend time NOT THINKING. So I prayed a simple prayer. “Dear Lord, help me to experience Psalm 46:10. Help me to experience nothing more than an hour of being still and knowing you are God.” A lot has been covered recently in the news on the benefits of meditation. It’s not a new idea… God told us a long time ago we needed to rest our mind.

Here’s a picture of my view from the bench…

So for the next hour (yes, I timed it) I intentionally laid on my back on a log in the forest in Canada and thought about nothing. The experience was amazing. I didn’t meditate on anything, process anything or ponder. I just let my mind rest. After a full hour ended I sat up and it was as if I had rested a tired muscle. There was clarity and peace and it wasn’t the result of me “figuring things out.” It was a result of spending an hour “being still.”

I spent the next hour reading and writing in my journal with clarity. God actually helped me understand three things He wanted me to know and take back home with me from the week in the woods. They were simple yet very profound…