Just Pause

Psalm 46:10 

He says, “Be still, and know that I am God;

    I will be exalted among the nations,

    I will be exalted in the earth.”

Just pause for a few minutes. I bet you can't. I challenge you to try.

I see how it is with everyone these days. To pause and be still, or quiet, or thoughtful is not something denoting value. But perhaps a waste of time.

The perception can be that it is bad to stop. Success cannot happen when you stop. One must go all the time to accomplish all that is in our minds that we have to do.

To stop and think and muse or just watch the rain outside is a great treasure to enjoy. But it goes against the grain of what culture today tells us. It is also how so many of us are wired, but why is that? This is what I ask myself. Why would you drive more than an hour for entertainment, when there is so much within a few miles (or at home)? Why would you book up your schedule so much that you have no spare time? What are you accomplishing?

Certainly, when our lives are busy and filled to the brim we are not letting those thoughts that cross our minds go to a deeper place, but we remain in this shallow pool of momentary worldly pursuits that satisfy for a minute. 

Even Jesus, who had a short 3 year span of time that he was on his missions, took quiet time away from everyone. He went up to the mountain to be alone, praying, in quiet. Why should we think that we don't need the same thing? You don't have to have a mountain, either. A quiet space, wherever that might be. Your favourite chair, a garden, the library, a chapel, your floor, a coffee shop.

Maybe I am the only one who feels this at the moment, or maybe you agree. When I think of something that goes against the grain of culture, it is worth investigating. When I think of something that Jesus did, it is worth following and doing the same. More and more I read in Scripture of the early Christians going against the way of the world, so why do we so easily just follow along with the mainstream today?