A few years back I had a devotional that was titled "Be still and let your nail polish dry" and I'm not going to lie, without even realizing what I was doing, I had been considering painting my nails (for some tiny amount of variety in my life) for almost 2 weeks now and every time I went to do it, it was never a convenient time because I couldn't be bothered waiting for it to dry and not being able to use my hands for like, 15 minutes max. So, as you might be able to tell, 'being still' and me aren't very good friends haha. Being busy and productive is a good thing and especially in these crazy times, it's important to find things to do and ways to connect with people.
But it's also so important to know how to just be still. Just to rest, but not with Netflix, with Jesus. Following both my break-ups, I threw myself into as many things as I could to distract me and keep me busy which I thought was a helpful coping mechanism, and yes there were worse things I could have been doing, but I realized later it was still an escape mechanism - because if I don't stop, I don't think, if I don't think, I don't feel and if I don't feel then I don't hurt. But it's only a temporary fix and eventually I had to face my problems and let Jesus come in and put me back together properly. (Which in His amazing grace, He did!)
Another issue with this is that it's not sustainable and this came up again recently. I had worked really hard to train myself to make an effort to be still and I thought that was just something that I had to keep in the back of my mind, but I was fine. With all the craziness and frustration of the world at the moment, the injustices that I see from the overall public health and safety perspective and me just missing my old normal, I started to slip back into this same pattern of just distraction and busyness from when I woke up until I went to bed. I still was reading the Bible, listening to worship music, journaling a bit etc, but I didn't give myself much time to do that because I started to struggle to keep up with everything that I was trying to squish on my plate. I hit my mid semester break from uni and I felt awful mentally and physically and I didn't know why. Until I was reflecting at the end of the week as I started feeling better after doing a bit of just resting, about why I like to be busy and I clicked again - it was an escape from the reality that I didn't like around me. Additionally, there was still some fear of if I let myself stop and think, then I would hurt again because it had become an automatic self defense mechanism so even though I'm doing well now, there's a 'what if' fear.
So what I'm learning, is that it takes courage to be still and let whatever feelings come, to come.
Because it's so important to actually take the time out regularly to recharge as maintenance but especially in harder times, to let God be the One to fill you in the way that only He can. And that can only happen when you block out every other thing, even if they are 'good' things, and just be still. There is a reason that being still is such a common theme in the Bible - verses like Psalm 23:2-3 "He makes me to lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside the still waters. He restores my soul." And Jesus modelled this as well, by regularly taking time out by Himself to spend with His Father (Mark 6:46, Luke 6:12). Even on the very hardest night of his earthly life when He knew He was about to be crucified, He didn't spend the night talking with people, or working on His carpentry or anything else that He might have done to distract Him from what was about to happen. He went, by Himself, to a spot in the garden to pray with His Father and to let His Father comfort Him and strengthen Him (Matthew 26:36-56). And this is exactly what God wants us to do as well. He loves and desires to spend time with us and there's nothing else in this whole world that can fulfill us or recharge us ready to continue giving of ourselves and serving others and Him.
So I really encourage you to make a plan - (I love schedules and work really well with them, but do what works for you), and whether you pick a time of day to just sit and open your ears, mind and heart to what He wants to say to you, or pick a day of the week to take a prayer walk or go to a special spot, join me in being brave enough to make being still part of your everyday life.
