It’s a funny thing to say, but I have never known how to rest. Even in stillness, my thoughts ricochet and collide through frayed networks of nerves, thoughts about kids’ afterschool activities and what to make for dinner tangling with barely coherent fears over climate change, my children’s futures, the health of my parents, the state of my bank account and my ever-expanding waistline. There is never an absence of worries to consume me. A few years ago, I became aware that my inability to be still was not just a problem for me.
My skittish tempo, always hurrying, caused me to forget important things; my lack of presence created a chasm between me and the people in my life. And it made it hard for me to really hear the still, quiet voice of God. This amazing God I had communed with regularly as a child, His warm, bright light coursing through my veins, had been reduced to a framework of morals and beliefs. A good framework no doubt, and one to live by, but what is belief without joy? So, I decided to learn how to rest. It started with simply sitting down more, and that was good. Twenty-minute sit-downs here and there.
I gave myself permission to garden, jog, and train in the gym, activities that made it easier for me to process my fears, my anger, my disappointments and guilt. As my channels of consciousness began to clear, finally rid of the plaque of calcified emotion, I started to feel the tingling of the Holy Spirit again. My life took on richness and dimension I hadn’t known was there; I was like a half-blind person wearing glasses for the first time. I’m never going to be a wise woman on a hill; God made me to work. He makes some of us like that.
If you’re like this too, and it’s hard for you to “waste your time” on things that aren’t productive, remember that God doesn’t simply want us to rest. He commands it. “In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength.” And like all of His commands, this one has a reason. You can’t walk with God while running in circles. And without Him, you’ll lose your way over and over. But that’s ok; He’s always there. He is there in the stillness. You just have to stop long enough to find Him again, and you always will.
~Jenna Wattenbarger~
