New Year’s Thoughts on Stillness
If you’ve been reading Listening on the Journey … blog posts for any length of time, you may recognize the story I tell today.
One of my most vivid childhood memories occurred when I was five years old.
A Christmas Eve snowstorm blanketed our small Montana hometown. On Christmas morning, Mom bundled my younger sister and me up in snowsuits, warm mittens, heavy socks, and boots so we could try out the new sled we’d received.
Ready first, I waited for my sister Karol to join me in the backyard.
Barely able to move, encased as I was in that bulky clothing, I grasped the cord tethered to our new sled in my mittened hand, mesmerized by the absolute quiet. The heavy blanket of snow insulated every sound except silence. At that young age, I had no way of knowing I was encountering my first profound spiritual experience, a recollection that remains in my soul today.
I think of that long-ago Christmas morning often when I read or hear the words of Psalms 46:10, words which have often created wistful desire:
BE STILL AND KNOW THAT I AM GOD! While I realize God loves me profoundly and unconditionally, my willful soul sometimes needs to be reminded, God is God, and I am not!
BE STILL AND KNOW! These words remind me that self-awareness, which leads me to greater God-awareness, is key to learning more of what God knows I still need to learn.
BE STILL! Stillness helps me focus on the Spirit’s whispering into my spirit. It helps me think and respond to life more wisely.
BE! With my entire being—physical, emotional, relational, intellectual, and spiritual—stillness enables me to:
be more present to God, myself, and to others;
be willing to listen and follow the Voice of the Divine;
be able to trust more fully a good God whose character is grace-filled, merciful, wrapped in love, and will guide me in right paths!
May your New Year be blessed with stillness and knowing,
