Its easy to find ourselves overwhelmed this time of year even if when we have the best intentions to focus more on the reason for the season. This is where I find myself. Yes, even though I’ve written about focusing on Advent! My heart longs to experience the fullness of Christ, but even when I try to lay it all down, my mind is still full with everything else. So I know it is by no accident that the subject of stillness keeps surfacing.
Is this you, too? When you get little pockets of down time, do you still have a hard time being still? Do you long for something more, or different, than the crazy pace we keep?
Have you ever stopped to evaluate how your time reflects your priorities? Or, even think about what fills your mind when it drifts?
These are questions I’ve been thinking about so I know they are not easy to ask of ourselves. And to be honest, when we stay busy we don’t have to. But, I wonder if we sometimes prefer busyness, even filling our time with mindless distractions, so we don’t have to probe deeper?!
One reason doing nothing is not easy for me is because I can’t put to rest what I should use the time to accomplish. Therefore, even if I’m techinically “resting” I am usually on my laptop doing something productive, justifying it will save me time later. The problem is even in my time saving efficiency, I still struggle to gain time to really be still.
Just think about what we do when we find ourselves in a waiting room, in line at the post office or grocery store, carpool line or at a red light, rarely do we redeem those little pockets of time for true soul care. Instead our minds continue racing with all we have to do or we check out completely by mindlessly scrolling through our phones. Either way, we miss opportunities to connect with God, to reflect, to engage with others around us or to simply sit.
In evaluating myself and my desire to spend more time in the Word personally and with my family during this season and all the time, I know I have time. It’s not really that I’m always too busy, it is just that we make time for whatever our priorities are. So sadly, it might appear that social media scanning is of a greater importance than the spiritual nourishment of my family.
Just admitting that sounds so twisted. Which it is and we are. We forsake relationship with our Creator King to be more tightly tied with what’s happening online. Not that keeping up on social media is wrong, I just think the premium many of us have inadvertently placed on being connected 24/7 has contributed to our distraction from still.
Being devote to Word and prayer and carving out family devotional time and meaningful conversation requires discipline and… being still. When we aren’t still we don’t have to think about the condition of our hearts, come face to face with our failures, our insufficiencies, the problems in our marriages and what is going on in the hearts of our kids.
It’s easier that way – not dealing with true emotions. So we mask our feelings even from ourselves and live pretending all is well, staying busy!
But what if we really realized how much more God is calling us to? What if we traded in ten minutes online for ten minutes in honest prayer? What if we discovered His Word really is life-giving and without being fed daily doses we don’t function the way we should? What would it take to believe being still is the greatest gift we can give ourselves – not because we need more “me-time” but because we are falling apart without God-time?
We fool ourselves into thinking we are strong and self-sufficient, but God created us to find strength through dependency on Him. So what better time than Advent to Be Still enough to let the coming Christ enter into our hearts more deeply. By God’s grace may we all find great rest and peace in Him this season.
Related past posts on Being Still: How Can We Be Still and Rest?, Be Still My Anxious Heart, Be Still My Soul
