I’m really good at moving and keeping busy. I cram my schedule with conversations, meetings, events, visits, and any thing else that keeps me moving from one thing to the next. My spiritual life tends to follow this pattern too. I cram activity and practices into my time of spiritual reflection and devotion. I start with this passage from the OT and then something from the NT and then a devotional reading and then some reading of some other book on spirituality…I fill my prayer journal with reflections and prayers for myself and for others and I go on prayer walks…you get the picture… I stay busy and occupied. I am constantly tempted to stay busy because I (and our society) have equated productivity with busyness. But there are moments, and this morning’s time of prayer was one of those for me, when the Spirit of God just calls me to stop and be still. God says to me, “stop with your busyness, your activities, your practices…your silly nonsense, and just be still. Don’t say anything, don’t do anything, just sit before me in my presence.” I’ll be honest, these moments are so foreign to me I’m not even sure how to do it…how do you do nothing but be still before God? Surely there’s some prayer to utter some Scripture to read something to think about, some proper way to sit…But God continues to call me to be still and be quiet before God. My guess is your really good at being busy too. But how good are you at being still before God? I can’t offer you any great suggestions on how to pull that off…like I said…I’m not really sure I do it right. All I can do is encourage you to try it how ever and what ever it might be like for you. Just try finding a few moments, acknowledge God’s presence, invite the Spirit to come, and then just don’t do anything, be still, be quiet, and wait on God. And then let me know how it goes…because I want to learn more about this amazing spiritual practice. Because while being still before God is incredibly difficult for me and pretty awkward because I have no idea what to do, without a doubt, I feel blessed from the experience because I know I have sat in God’s presence and I receive the peace that comes with spending time at God’s feet.
Peace +++
Kyle