Stillness

…Silence. I’m sitting in my house all alone as I write this. I can hear crickets and the occasional car outside. The lights are dimmed. The faint whir of the fan mingles with the creaks of the house and the hum of the AC. My computer’s almost dead, on 3%. And yet, I’m sitting here, with the white screen in front of me. I have seven projects I should be working on, three that I could be working on, and I don’t really need another post in reserve on Substack. So why am I writing this?

This is soothing. Calming. Pouring out words on a page without worrying about who’s going to read it, is it well-written enough, what if I make a mistake. Maybe it’s because this is Substack and there is no “thumbs down” button. Maybe it’s the ambience, completely still, no television or phone or other people, just me and the computer. Maybe it’s because I’m mentally and emotionally exhausted and it’s nice to pour my thoughts out in a soft soup.

Maybe it’s because God speaks best in the stillness. When I’m sitting and thinking and there’s no one around to condemn me, God is able to make Himself known because I’m listening to Him and only Him. The quiet is beautiful when you’re at peace with God.

As I sit here, I remember.

Good times like laughing with my siblings, snuggling with my parents, family movie nights where we all told my little brother to stop talking and watch the movie, making Christmas cookies while my dad reminded us to clean up our mess when we were done (we forgot), dancing in the living room to music from the nineties and mom scrambling to change it as she realized that the song was not as clean as she thought it was.

Not so great times like when my dad called us up from school to tell us our kitten had got into the car engine and died, arguments and yelling and words regretted, the time my little brother accused me of cheating, the many times mom came home and we realized we forget to do our chores, replacing memory-worn furniture because it was just too ol

My computer died. And I got to talk to God as it recharged. The waiting, the stillness, the silence, are such good places to pray. Other times are good too, but when you have people around you or music playing or things moving and going you can’t connect as well. Maybe that’s just me, though. I know that I get to know people best when it’s just them and me talking without any risk of someone overhearing. Because some things I don’t want to share with the world at large.

Stillness and being alone are two important things in the Bible. After all, John the Baptist lived in the wilderness, Jesus was tempted in the wilderness, and the Israelites wandered in the wilderness. The wilderness was an empty place without any other people. No random strangers coming up to talk to you, no friends or family. Just you and God. And stillness…what did Jesus say when He calmed the storm? “Peace, be still.” God spoke to Elijah in the stillness. When Jesus went to pray before His arrest, he went to a garden, then left his disciples behind and went to pray alone in the stillness of the garden at night.

“Stop and smell the roses.” No. Stop and pray. Pray when you’re waiting in line, pray when you get a quiet moment to yourself, pray when you’re in your room alone, pray in those moments before everything begins. Pray in the waiting room at your next appointment, pray when you feel lonely, pray when you fell sad. When you’re alone, when the world around you is still, pray. And when it’s not, pray anyway, because if David, the warrior king of Israel, could dance in the streets to praise God, you can too.

Just don’t forget to stop in the stillness and pray. That’s what I’m going to do right now.

God loves you and so do I,
Hosanna