The Beauty of Being Still

Oh how I wish I could remember the last time I didn't have anything in my To-Do list queue. It seems like it has been years since my planner wasn't chalked full of appointments, meetings, days at the office, and hours in the classroom. Don't get me wrong, a life full of new experiences, challenging opportunities and full schedules is exciting... but if you're anything like me, you can easily mistake days that are packed full and planned out hour by hour for a life that is exponentially more significant, successful, and joyful than one that leaves space for stillness.

If I'm really honest with myself, I use busyness to numb the discomfort of being still. Quiet moments with nothing to do and nowhere to be feel lonely, so I run away from them, fill them with distractions, and justify it in the name of being too busy.

And so I miss it. I miss the opportunity to let God do what he does in us and through us when he creates space for us to be still.

There are so many places in scripture that intentionally tell us of God's Design for Human Rest.

Take Genesis, for example. God made 7 days, yet he only did something in 6 of them.

On the 7th, even in the face of all the new and exciting things that were going on in his creation, he rested. He was still.

The Old Testament story of God promising to deliver the Israelites out of Egypt is followed by a waiting period of 400 years. Since I'm pretty sure our omnipresent, all powerful God could have delivered them and carried them out in that very moment, why did he wait 400 years?

Because It is His design for his people to be still.

Here's why I think that is:

In stillness, we are forced to trust that he will deliver us in His perfect timing.

In stillness, we are stretched and grown by the way we have to rely on him to provide as we wait.

In stillness, we can sit at the foot of the cross, meditate on scripture, and dwell in His presence.

In stillness, our longings for satisfaction and fulfillment and relationships and provisions and security remind us of our ultimate longing: that which is for eternity with our father in heaven.

While I praise Him for these truths, I need to be reminded of them daily.

And I hope and pray that every time I feel a eager and angsty longing to get up and get away from the space of sweet stillness that he has provided, I see that as a signal that I need him all the more.

So here is to being still in the quiet, running like heck away from filling me empty time with distractions, and intentionally carving out time to grow and be rooted in the goodness of God's design for us.

Because he really does speak to us in the silence.