What the Pit Reveals
A Guide to Reading What Surfaces in the Silence
On Monday, I wrote about why the silence gets worse before it gets better. I told you about Joseph’s pit, about the tradition that says the empty pit was full of snakes and scorpions, about how ten minutes of stillness does the same thing to a leader who sits still long enough. I told you that struggle is not failure. Struggle is how we know that the practice is working.
Today, I want to give you something to do with what you found there.
Because naming the discomfort is necessary. But it is not enough. If all you do is notice that the pit is full of difficult things, you will eventually climb out and go back to being busy. The practice only transforms you if you learn to read what surfaces, to treat it as diagnostic information about the God you actually relate to when no one is watching.
Three Things the Pit Reveals
I have sat with plenty of leaders over the years. I have sat in my own pit more times than I want to count. And what surfaces in the silence is not random. It falls into three categories, and each one tells a different story about where you are.
Restless striving. Your body cannot settle because your nervous system has been trained to equate stillness with danger. For years, your worth has been tied to your output. Sitting still feels like falling behind. This is the Performance Path showing itself not just in your mind but in your muscles, your breathing, your clenched jaw. The silence reveals how deeply you have internalized the lie that your value comes from what you produce.
If restless striving is what surfaces for you, the silence is showing you that your operating system is performance, not presence. That is not a moral failure. It is an attachment pattern. And attachment patterns can change.
Old wounds. Memories, regrets, and unprocessed grief surface when you stop outrunning them. A conversation from years ago that still stings. A failure you never fully mourned. A relationship that broke and never healed. These are the snakes and scorpions in the pit. They were always there. You were just too busy to notice.
If old wounds are surfacing, the silence is doing exactly what it was designed to do: revealing what needs to be brought to safe people. A therapist. A spiritual director. A pastor or trusted friend. And, ultimately, to the God who knows you, loves you, and is always happy to be with you. The practice creates the conditions for healing, but it is not meant to be the healer. You were never supposed to process these alone.
