On Stillness

He leads me beside still waters… (Psalm 23:2)

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One thing I always notice about getting away (on a vacation or retreat) is how miraculously God allows us to see things from a different vantage point. Though I know we don’t drive to a new locale and physically look back at our life, it is almost as if physically removing ourselves somehow supernaturally enables us to see the daily grind of our days with a startlingly new perspective.

That’s why getting away is so good.

My “get away” was simply a week spent with my kids and parents out at Riversong, their home on the river in the middle of nowhere.  (Jeff was out of town.)  I cooked a lot of beef dinners (because I love you, Dad), went to bed at 8 o’clock each night, and spent precious early mornings with the Father every day.  My days were pretty quiet but His voice was loud and clear.

Creation has a way of bringing perspective. Perhaps it is because it displays God’s invisible attributes of eternal power and divine nature (Rom 1:20).  When we get out into nature we see God’s nature–our man-made creations pale in comparison.  When I stand at the back of my parents’ property, surrounded by nothing but trees, river, birds, hillside–the whole earth is hushed.  In the quiet, still moment my spirit finally slows to a sacred stop.  And in that moment I stare at the rushing water and can finally see things clearly.

In the stillness I can feel that am restless.

In the quiet I can hear that my life is loud.

Without being distracted I can see that I often am.

While I’m there, the trees ask me each morning if I am abiding. The river asks if I am freely allowing God’s divine resources to flow through my life.  The snow that falls reminds me my scarlet sins are gone. The rain and rainbows gives a fresh promise God is not through with me yet. There is so much grace here.

Here in the stillness.

He restores my soul… (Psalm 23:3)

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By nature I’m about as still as a hurricane.  My husband says I am a shark–if I stay still I’ll die.  My dad once told me if you stop moving and don’t use your muscles they’ll atrophy and you’ll lose ’em. Apparently I took that to heart because I’ve never stopped moving since.  To be fair, in most of my activity there for the most part a joyful enthusiasm and a striving to steward what God has given me. But also there can be the very unholy frenzy of distraction, control, and addiction to adrenalin.  I don’t like the dust to settle where I can see it, I’d rather just keep it whirling around in motion.

But I’m learning, for moments, to be still.  In prayer, in Scripture, in Sabbath-naps and silent moments in each other’s arms on the couch.  I inhale the smell of Jeff’s neck and I am home. In extra-long rocking chair time with Heidi, in “one more story” bedtime snuggles with Dutch, even in small but priceless moments in Winco of letting Dutch scoop the flour out of the bin into the bag all by himself… in eternally slow, tiny scoops.  Stillness helped me crouch down beside him and memorize his face. He beamed with accomplishment and held up the bag, his trophy.  A moment I would have missed were it not for stillness.

How many moments have I missed?

Of course life does not consists merely of stillness.  I will still continue to be a whirlwind of activity, Lord willing, for all the days He gives me here on earth. But I am thankful for my week away and for a renewed commitment to stillness. In a world where productivity equals value and busyness equals evidence of worth, God’s words speaks cross the grain and restores our souls.

Be still and know that I am God.

I will be exalted in the nations.

I will be exalted in the earth. (Psalm 46:10)