Author: Adam

This might sound counter intuitive but that’s the point. Stillness is movement in your spiritual life. In fact, you may not realize that stillness is the best thing you could do for your spiritual life. Especially if things feel stagnant.

God got my attention about 10 years ago when he woke me up to the fact that I was headed no where and fast with my spiritual growth and development.

I lacked true depth because I couldn’t be still.

I couldn’t be still because I was afraid of the change that God really needed to do in me. Which brings me to Psalm 46:10

“Be still, and know that I am God.”

On the flip side, that means, “Be still, and know that I (Adam) am not God.”

I think on the face of it, most of us know that we are not God. But deep down it’s hard admit that we really don’t have control. We want the level control over our “narrative” and destiny and yet, we are out of control so often.

Let’s get into what we mean here about stillness and why it is so important to the Christian walk.

You Can’t Afford To Not Be Still

I’ve been covering a lot of Christian disciplines and practices and what seems to be a theme that binds them all together is this idea of slowing down, being still, and listening.

All of these ideas are postures before God. We are necessarily talking about physical posture, although you might find it helpful to sit and physically be still. We are talking about quieting your mind and heart.

I think of the Psalm 131 when it talks about how we calm our souls like a child is weaned.

Psalm 131:2: “But I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother; like a weaned child is my soul within me.”

Now isn’t that an incredible picture. Weaning is a slow process, but in some respects it’s intentional. It’s a healthy and necessary process for the child’s development. A weaned child is also old enough in how it handles not having it’s mothers milk. It’s calm and confident and not seeking it’s mother because it is now filled not only physically by whole foods, but emotionally as well. The child is no longer seeking its mother for comfort in this sense any more.

Wow! Now, David emphasizes his effort to calm his soul himself. This give me great assurance that I am capable of calming myself.

It is a good thing to seek stillness and calmness but to be empowered to command your soul in this way should be powerful for you.

Even still, you can cry out to God and He will meet you to help calm you soul as you feel turmoil within and struggle to calm yourself in the middle of life’s chaos.

Most times, I struggle to even try to ask God and to wait patiently for His answer. I demand from God when I ought not to because of my stubborn attitude or selfish ways.

Even more so to reflect and spend more time to become self aware of your bent in many of life’s situations.

Our stillness demonstrates to God that we are willing to submit to His sovereign hand.

Stillness Packs a Punch

Stillness is hard to come by when you have SO many responsibilities any given day. As parents this has revealed itself in a whole new way in our lives.

It feels almost impossible unless you break the spacetime continuum and find a way to tap into extra hours each day. It’s hard to get it all in.

I’ve found that this is a matter of evaluating how you spend your time and how you prioritize it.

I’m just as guilty of wasting my precious time on things that are not fulfilling my goals, roles, and responsibilities.

Self awareness is key and a willingness to learn the hard way is crucial to taking steps in the right direction here.

So, making stillness a priority will come when we realize the benefits it brings.

Spiritual Clarity. I talked extensively about cutting out the noise in order to hear God’s voice in another post. Stillness gives us the space to have clarity of mind in our relationship with God.

Inner Peace. This leads to a clean conscious when we have spiritual clarity and we have done “business” with God. When I know I am right with Him and I have done all that He has called me to do in this life with my life. I have peace within.

Renewal. Isiah 40:31 says: Isaiah 40:31

“But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.”

We gain strength in our walk through this process of being still and waiting on the Lord.

So why is it hard to be still?

When I think of stillness sometimes I think of asking a toddler to sit still while eating their lunch. It feels impossible!

I think it’s challenging to be still for a couple of reasons.

Our culture promotes busyness. We are driven by societal norms to never slow down. That comes with a world of pressures in and of itself that are guided by the idea of productivity and achieving goals. We are constantly faced with the decision to keep going and never slow down or else we will miss out. FOMO!

We are afraid of the silence. I am waiting for the day we no longer turn on the sound maker for my kids to sleep to because I’m wondering how they will handle the silence that lets every little noise break through. Which brings me to why I think we are afraid of the stillness, because we are afraid of what we will actually hear. In ourselves or from God. Stillness forces us to see what is really there. Like peering into the night sky to see the stars as they come into view and our eyes adjust. We have to be still and widen our eyes to see them.

Fear brings about a world of discomfort that we are forced to face when we are still. This uncomfortable journey is one we must embrace if we anticipate or desire God to work in us in new and expansive ways.

So how do we get still before God?

Know that you will always be working against the push of the busyness of life to get this time. Especially if you’re not use to doing so.

You need to create the routine and space for stillness. Which means you may need to create the margins to do this. Margins in physical space. Margins in your time.

That’s why so many rise early to get in their quiet time. It is often the best time to have stillness before the rush of the work day and loved ones are awake.

Start your time with prayer and talking with God. Maybe some scripture reading. I’ve encouraged clients to just dump their minds into a journal and to just get their first thoughts out and to then pray and offer those thoughts to the Lord.

What’s important is that you understand this is an intentional effort that you must make for yourself and you will always be confronting the demands of life. Don’t let that trigger you. Embrace the challenge as a given and adapt as you have need to adapt.

Be Encouraged. You are not alone.

Many face the challenges of finding the stillness that you need and seek. Don’t be discouraged in your journey for you are among many faithful servants of the Lord who long to be at home with him.

Psalm 62:5: “For God alone, O my soul, wait in silence, for my hope is from Him.”

Exodus 14:14: “The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still.”

Isaiah 30:15: “In quietness and trust is your strength.”

Start today.

Don’t hesitate. Start practicing stillness today. Take small steps at first and build a routine that will feed your soul. If you have religious roots that have led you into a self righteous or religious “box checking” spirit, take the time you need to process and work through those emotional religious challenges.

Sometime ago I was introduced to “Biblical Affirmations” by Craig Groeschel on The Craig Groeschel’s Leadership Podcast.

It should not have been a new concept to me. But I will admit that the idea of “recapturing affirmations” from what at the time was thought of as simply positive affirmations and self-image boosting was an interesting idea to me but not necessary for the Christian life.

What I did not realize was that this practice of biblical affirmations was not simply Christian positivity. Rather, exercising our memory of God’s truths from the scriptures. Oddly enough affirming Biblical truths in my heart and mind was a radical concept for daily renewal in spite of my history of being raised in the church.

Maybe the mix of new age, the dawn of self-help culture, and Tony Robbins ruined my idea of positive affirmations and affirming one’s beliefs in this way. But what does the enemy do best. Kill, steal, and destroy. Don’t let the enemy keep you from this powerful practice of aligning your beliefs to God’s truths.

Reconnect with your deepest convictions and align them with the scriptures. This is an excellent devotional practice. Keep in mind our emphasis on biblical. Affirmations are rooted in scripture and sometimes are simply scripture itself.

Here are some examples of biblical affirmations:

1. I am fearfully and wonderfully made. (Psalm 139:14)
   • “I am uniquely created by God and have value and purpose.”
2. God has not given me a spirit of fear, but of power, love, and self-discipline. (2 Timothy 1:7)
   • “I walk in boldness, love, and self-control, knowing God is with me.”
3. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. (Philippians 4:13)
   • “With Christ’s strength, I can overcome any obstacle.”
4. The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. (Psalm 23:1)
   • “God provides all my needs; I lack nothing in Him.”
5. I am more than a conqueror through Him who loved me. (Romans 8:37)
   • “In Christ, I have victory over every challenge.”
6. God’s grace is sufficient for me. (2 Corinthians 12:9)
   • “No matter my weakness, God’s grace empowers me.”

Craig’s affirmations are great. I will link to them here because I adopted them for myself. But if you are not in the habit of affirming these beliefs with deep conviction then this can quickly become a religious exercise. So test your heart.

That being said, I want to encourage some degree of caution and direction with this practice. Affirmations can be powerful but we must make sure they align with truth. I’ve often seen believers affirming what they thought to be true when in fact the affirmation was a regurgitated mantra from other religious practices and not from God. This is why, without going into great detail, I think the practice of positive affirmations has been tainted and quite dangerous. As Christians our identities are founded in Christ and not in the words we repeat to ourselves. There is no mystery to this practice other than receiving what God has already freely given to us.

One thing I recommend doing is recording yourself saying your affirmations and then listening to them back. Listen to your heart. To your conviction. Let that convict you.

Another step to this journey for me and one I think you should consider is creating a affirmations movie. This is something you put together for yourself to remind yourself of the truths and vision God has for your life in a movie format.

This does take some effort, but it is a concept I find very interesting and to implement it in daily reflection could be quite powerful.

If you struggle with the thoughts you have in your mind. Consider talking them through with a mentor or coach. It is incredibly helpful just to hear yourself say some of the thoughts you have churning in your mind.

I hope this encourages you to reflect and ponder your thoughts and beliefs and to not let the enemy take hold of your precious thought life with lies. You can take them captive.

Be blessed!

If I could give any piece of advice about walking with God to anyone. It would be.

Slow down and listen.

The biggest mistake I believe we can all make is that we expect God to “keep pace” with our busy lives and we are going to just “fit HIM into” OUR schedules.

WRONG!

The secret to waiting, listening, and hearing God’s voice is slowness.

There really is no way around it.

God’s timeline is not our timeline and we so often go off on OUR timeline and start dictating to God how things will go when we ought to pause more often than not and just hear what He wants for our lives.

Life naturally get noisy. We get distracted. Our thoughts get clouded and we can’t expect to keep the noise and hear the small still voice of God.

Maybe we are afraid to slow down and hear God’s voice because we think we know what He’s going to say. But is what you have in your mind really true?

My friend, don’t forget the period of time in which you live is the most gracious period of time God has granted in history.

We have so much opportunity to just believe and trust. God is not sitting there waiting to strike you down the moment you come to Him to listen to Him.

He is giving you this time to slow down and come to Him.

While there will be the moment in History that we see Jesus coming on the clouds and time will be up. It is not yet.

So, what are we to do.

This is often the most difficult thing in this life. I myself have struggled greatly to be with God and to just sit.

So here are a few ideas and I hope you consider ways in which you can slow down and pause and listen… and wait.

Practical Steps to Hear God’s Voice

1. Have you built into your schedule a time of devotion? If you’ve never heard of the idea. What would it look like for you to start each day with 10-20 minutes in silent prayer and scripture reading and then to reflect? Take even the moments you need to journal.
2. Memorize scripture. I kid you not. The power of memorized scripture is real. I have gone through seasons where I tuck the scriptures away and then the moment will come that God uses the scriptures to remind me of his Character or to share with someone else his goodness. Don’t underestimate the power of memorizing the scriptures.
3. LOOK! This is a slightly nuanced approach to prayer, but it is simply the approach of looking for how the spirit might be prompting you or presenting to you His will throughout the day. Ask God to make plain in your heart his guidance and test what you encounter by holding those promptings up to the scriptures. If you are new to the faith I encourage you to seek wisdom from others as well as you discern the voice of the spirit.
4. Turn off your devices. I’m not just talking about your phones, iPads and computers. I even mean the fridge if you must. Hear me out. I had this mini fridge that hummed at a particularly annoying pitch and on one hand I knew it was causing a distraction, but on the other hand, I wasn’t willing to unplug it. It was empty. So, maybe there are things that are literally a distraction for your mind and you don’t even know it. Remove them. Silence really can do wonders to draw your focus.
5. Godly Counsel! Seeking Godly counsel about your circumstances or your struggles can help hone your sense of the truth and the voice of God. Seek wisdom from Godly, biblical believers, mentors, and pastors.
6. Humble Yourself. I can’t not say this, but in some sense, you may be keeping yourself from hearing from God because you are in the way. Man, I think of the tax collector and the pharisee before God. The tax collector in his humility when home justified before God. [Luke 18:9-14] Take stock of your heart and prepare it for hearing from God. You may not be ready to hear what He has to say until you humble yourself.

Final Thoughts

Hearing God’s voice isn’t necessarily about doing more or checking off more boxes. It’s about aligning yourself with His heart by becoming more sensitive to His desires. We don’t just stumble into hearing God’s voice. We intentionally go to Him in humility and spend time with Him. He is a relational God. Gracious in his ways with us. I hope you are encouraged to slow down and hear his voice to quiet the noise and be still with Him.