It seems to happen on Sundays. That moment when the Lord grabs my heart,
looks me straight in the eyes, and points out that thing...that thing that I
have been ignoring or unaware of that needed adjusting. A spiritual shake up. It’s not that I don’t spend time with the
Lord during the week…but there is something about that time on Sunday, when all
of your attention is focused on nothing but His presence, and what He wants to
say, that really gives Him an opportunity to speak. I realized first, that I have been
struggling with a few things recently that stem from a place of fear. And rather than addressing the fear, I try
to mask it by keeping busy. I have
been having so many conversations with people lately who struggle with anxiety,
myself included...and I realized secondarily, that one thing we all have in
common is a struggle with being still.
To truly be still. Not just
sitting still while your mind is entertained by an app or a T.V. program (which
let’s be honest we all probably do pretty well). Not just being still in the car between
errands. It’s like we are
running. Perhaps from fear of failure,
we push to try and succeed. Maybe it’s
a fear of vulnerability, we stay busy so that we do not have to face the state
of our own heart. Maybe it’s out of
habit. We have become so use to being
busy that it feels wrong to stop. Maybe
it’s out of obligation. There is so much
on our plate that we have no choice but to run from one thing to the next just
to keep afloat. Whatever the reason, or reasons may be…on
Sunday, in that moment I had a bit of a double revelation.
I do not practice the act of stillness in my life. Not regularly anyway.
The Bible tells us to
be still. In fact, it tells us over and over. And it’s different than rest, which the
Bible also talks about and it is hugely important and necessary for a healthy
life. But to be still, that is
different action entirely.
To rest means, to cease work or movement, and recover
strength. We need this for our physically,
mentally, and emotionally well-being. But to be still, this is a deep silence. A calm.
An act of the heart and mind. This
is a time when we choose to block out the world, to submit our thoughts to the
Lord, remember who He is, meditate on His truth, and allow Him to speak. Allow Him to move on our behalf, allow Him to
mend, heal, and restore, with no agenda of our own. I am realizing for myself, that in order to
be still, I have to make it a practice.
Something that needs to become a daily, a part of my routine. A time when I step away from every
distraction, every noise, every task or duty.
Where it’s just me and Jesus.
Just my heart and His. A time when I step outside of my busy life,
not to recover but to relinquish, remember, and reflect. If we do not choose to stop, the to do list
will win every time.
In God’s Word we see many verses on the subject
Zachariah 2:13 tells us to “Be still before the Lord, all mankind”
Psalm 46:10 says “Be still and know that I am God”
Exodus 14:14 reminds us that “The Lord will fight for you,
you need only to be still”
Habakkuk 2:20 declares “The Lord is in His holy temple. All the earth –Be quiet in His presence.”
Just to name a few….
I wonder if the Lord, in all His wisdom, knew before time
began, that we humans would have the tendency to go. To move and not stop, and in our busyness, even
with the best of intention, lose sight of Him.
To let our own momentum move us, and then wonder why we end up feeling
so far away from peace. And I wonder, if
the Lord in all His wisdom, knew that if we kept going, without stopping to be
still, that we would find ourselves feeling an emptiness and fear that causes us
to work even harder to fill the void rather than taking a moment to stop. Be still.
And let Him, the Almighty, the one who fights for us, the Lord of Lords
and God of peace, enter into our hearts and minds. What if Stillness was the rule not the
exception? What if we went against
everything our schedule was telling us we should be doing, for a moment or
two? How would our lives look then? How would He be glorified in and through
us? I want to experience more of Him, and
maybe, in the very place where everything else falls away…In the stillness He
is there waiting to meet us.
