Stillness Takes Time
In choosing to be still before the Lord, I refuse to be driven by the demands of the world.
Coming before the Lord in stillness is hard. Even after several months of training myself to spend lots of time with Christ in prayer and meditation every day, I still find it challenging every single time to calm myself down and enter into stillness. This, however, shouldn't be surprising. I live in a world that values movement far more than stillness. I am encouraged to keep moving every single day—to do something, to achieve something. And if I don't make substantial progress in my life, I'm supposed to feel bad about it.
But practicing stillness flies in the face of such a progress-driven, achievement-driven world. In choosing to be still before the Lord, I refuse to be driven by the demands of the world. Instead, I choose to be driven by God's holy ways. When I practice stillness, I trust God to "run the show" without me. In fact, He truly runs the show anyway. I am able to step away from the world for a period of time and from my responsibilities and simply trust Him completely.
Knowing the good reasons to practice stillness doesn't make the spiritual exercise any easier. It's really hard to actually be still before the Lord. One of the things I need to remind myself of from time to time is to be patient with myself. When I come before the Lord in stillness, I already know that I'll be coming with a tangle of thoughts in my head: worries that I need to face, problems that I need to solve, errands that I need to complete. There will be no shortage of things running through my mind and heart when I come before the Lord in prayer. This is normal. I need to be patient with myself as these thoughts arise, knowing that they won't be set aside so easily. Instead of fighting these thoughts, I've been learning to let them come and go and to offer them to the Lord in worship.
Sometimes, it can take me up to 30 minutes just to set aside all the worries, problems, and demands of life plaguing my mind and heart. That's OK. I'm beginning to realize that this is simply part of the process of practicing stillness. Therefore, I should expect to spend the first 20-30 minutes of stillness just navigating what's in my mind and heart. It can be hard labor at times. But if I can successfully set these things aside, I will be in a better position to truly see God for who He is. I will be able to set my mind and heart upon Him, ready to fully worship Him.
If you're having trouble entering into stillness of mind and heart, that's OK. I get it. Don’t fight it. Let the thoughts come and go. Offer them to the Lord. You might need to spend several minutes just navigating these thoughts before you can clearly see God. But if you're able to successfully navigate these thoughts, you will have set yourself up to see God fully for who He is.
Barnabas the Monastic
Servant of Christ. Husband. Dad. Modern Monastic. I have a wild ambition in life: get as close to the Lord Jesus Christ as I can while on earth. I explore and integrate ancient Christian monk wisdom in modern everyday life. Lives in Canada.
