Day 12 - Issue 24
Psalm 46:10a NLT
'Be still, and know that I am God!'
Prayer can be my endless monotone of requests, concerns and appeals to God. God is seen as our lifebelt which we reach for to stay afloat in stormy waters. In reality, prayer is a precise response in search of a God who I deeply desire to encounter. With such love there are no guarantees of reciprocation, and my search for God might prove fruitless since God can only and ever be sought through faith. And faith is literally without substance, established solely upon an insubstantial foundation. For faith is to knowledge what skill is to sport: Intuition + Practise = Performance.
The first essential of all prayer is stillness. This is the absence of motion, the stillness of mind and heart in the face of myriad distractions. Stillness is my choice. While the mind is never free from processing millions of bytes of data sent via our senses for interpretation, we must teach our brain the art of stillness. Here, years of activity including work, hobbies, family etc take their toll. Our brains demand stimulation, and such activities offer this up in plenty. This is something we believe stillness can never give us. Forced to do nothing, we are restless. Periods of illness or the daily repetition of retirement reveal the challenge to occupy time effectively. As has been said, most people fear eternity for they don’t know what to do with themselves on a wet Sunday afternoon.
Stillness is the process by which we grow to know ourselves and become content in our own company. It steadily reduces our need for distractions. It creates the space where we can wait, seek and discover God. God refuses to compete with our constant need for distractions. God demands my full attention and is wounded when my attention drifts elsewhere. First steps into stillness take time and demand my total attention. It can feel painful, for stillness is nowhere practised in an accelerating society, where stillness is equated with lack of purpose and meaning. This so easily strips us of our self-worth, for we think we are what we do. Yet, stillness before God reveals that we are so much more.
QUESTION: Have you the courage to explore stillness?
PRAYER: Lord, there are so many distractions, so much noise, and my attention is so often divided. Yet, help my heart and mind be wholly yours.
