Whether you celebrate Advent or not, this is a time of year often full of anticipation. We step back and find ourselves waiting for things. Whether you’re waiting for Christmas Day with great haste or, like me, you’re waiting for this time of year to be over, we’re all waiting for something. That’s the big word of the hour: we are waiting. In my book Waiting: Devotions for the Journey, I make the following statement in Day 1: “I am not Fine Today:”
“When we wait, we have an overwhelming sense of anticipation. This strange, sometimes unsettling sense leaves us hyper-aware of our existing situations. Where we might have been content and peaceful to live our lives and mind our own business, our world is suddenly disrupted. No longer are we fine, content, even happy to remain where we are. We’re handling something that is leading to something else. At points, it can’t come fast enough. We search; we strive for the answers to our situation, until we come to the point where we recognize there isn’t anything we can to do hasten things along. All we can do is wait and see…and be awkward in the meantime.”
Waiting is unpleasant for many, no doubt. It, however, drives home important focus in our relationship with God.
For most of my life, I haven’t done well with being still. I am a mover and a shaker, and I thrive when I am busy. For me, I haven’t had a lot of help in ministry over the years, forcing me to do many things, often very quickly. I’m almost always doing something. Whether it’s phone calls, meeting deadlines, writing articles, handling web work, navigating social media, preparing lessons or sermons, or writing books, I’ve developed a literal spirituality where I am always “praying without ceasing” (1 Thessalonians 5:17). I am always talking to God, thinking of God, and listening for His Word to me. I do not like to miss God in anything, so I seek Him in everything.
The flip side of this, however, is that rest can be difficult to find. Exhaustion is very real. When we are exhausted, we can’t effectively hear from God. There’s a reason Psalm 46:10 tells us:
Be still and know that I am God. (NIV)
I know that He is God. I acknowledge Him as Creator, Savior, Sustainer, Redeemer, and everything else we often say without thinking. But can I truly know Him – know for myself that He is God – if I don’t ever stop to be still and know Him for myself?
If you study comparative religion, you’ll quickly see some religious groups have “be still” down very well. They will sit and meditate for hours without moving. They don’t seem easily distracted as they sit in contorted positions that look very uncomfortable. The process is supposed to center them as they think about nothing. Some focus on specific phrases or riddles while others center on objects. By doing so, they hope to attain a new level of enlightenment.
While they know how to be still, they do not know He is God. Many of these systems deny the existence of a Creator and totally reject the idea of God. Their meditations do not seek to bring them closer to God, but to a greater awareness of themselves and of mysteries of the universe. They have mastered stillness in every position under the sun, but reject the balance because they do not know God. They’re waiting for something, but it isn’t God.
Being still definitely matters. Why we are still matters as much as being still, as we can see from the example above. When we are still, we wait for God’s revelation to us. Rather than having to find all the answers within ourselves, God reveals Himself to us, in our situation.
Christians today aren’t good at “being still.” Current trends clearly tell us many believers don’t have the results of stillness (i.e., they don’t know God). A major reason why we do not know He is God is because we are never still. We are so busy jumping up and down, “amen-ing” everything the preacher says, and wanting to run around the room that we miss essential instruction in Who God is and what believing in God is all about. In our strive to try and know God with enthusiasm, we are missing God because we can’t sit still.
We must find the balance between the two. It is amazing what we learn when we sit still and listen. This is true in our prayer lives as much as in a church setting. Every one of us, regardless of position (leader or laity), are forever learning and receiving the Lord’s revelation. If we are to hear the Lord, we must stop talking. I need to be still, so as not to miss His move in my life. Sometimes I think we surround ourselves with noise and business so as to miss God’s Word because we are afraid we do not want to hear it. It is easy to be noisy; it takes discipline to be silent and wait.
Christians need to learn about waiting. I am not suggesting we must sit as if we are unable to speak in church, but we can’t let our enthusiasm drown out divine revelation. If we wait for His revelation, we can distinguish true preaching from false. Emotionally charged messages that send us flying out of our seats can easily harbor false doctrine. If we are looking for emotional cues to keep us moving rather than disciplines that require stillness, we won’t come to know God.
How are you on “being still and knowing?” In a world of technological buzzes, phones ringing at all hours, email, internet social networks, family distractions, computers, televisions, fax machines, bluetooths, instant messaging, and more – it is easy to not “be still and know God.” We can assume waiting is for a different era, a different place, and a different time. With all these distractions, the enemy knows how easy it is to swoop in, feed our minds with nonsense, and send us chasing after roads that lead to nothing but destruction.
It is a perfect time of year to focus on our wait, as we step back, are still, and know God is God.
Emerson once said, “Let us be silent that we may hear the whisper of God.” There is peace, revelation, and truth in the silence of a spiritual waiting period. May God’s revelation to us be uncontaminated, not competing with anything else in our time and space. It is my prayer that we may learn to be still in a deeper sense than ever before. Let us be silent, waiting to hear God’s whisper, and receive His revelation without distraction.
Read more on Patheos – Seek. Understand.
