Faithfully Still

Sitting still is something I have never been good at.  I drive my husband crazy almost every night because I just never get still!  I literally have to wiggle, just to fall asleep.  You know, toss and turn to find the perfect positioning.  (Brian really is a saint!)

So, God has been giving me this advice to focus on pretty regularly lately.  “Be still.” 

“Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations,
I will be exalted in the earth.”  Psalm 46:10

Moses answered the people, “Do not be afraid. Stand firm and you will see the deliverance the Lord will bring you today. The Egyptians you see today you will never see again.   
The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still.”  Exodus 14: 13-14

But the last thing I really want to do is be still!  Honestly, I feel like I’m not doing my part if I’m still.  In the past my work has kept me very busy.  As a pre-kindergarten teacher there was rarely a dull moment.  And later as a children’s minister in a full-time church staff position I don’t believe I ever sat still.  

Yet lately, I hear God telling me, “be still.”

But, God, there’s so much to be done here.  So many people who need MY help!  How can you ask me to just “sit still?”  

In stillness, I begin feeling guilty.  Guilty that I’m not pulling my weight.  Guilty that I don’t have fabulous deeds to write glowing blogs about that will cause my readers to send in so much financial support that the office in New York will love me so much that they hang my picture on the wall.  Guilty that I am not giving food to every hungry person in Ahuachapan.  Guilty that I haven’t produced a year’s worth of  Sunday School lessons….

And there it is.  The heart of my guilt.  Why haven’t I produced more Sunday School lessons?  I’ve been here a year and a half and the teachers I serve have only received one completed unit with materials from me.  I must be a failure.  And to make it worse, I have a bag full of supplies separated by church and ready to go as soon as the next unit of lessons is completed and printed.  The bag stares at me in my office, mocking me each time I go to the computer trying to complete the last few lessons for this unit.  And so…I just avoid my office.  I don’t want to be mocked by a bag of supplies!

And so God says to me, “be still.”

Are you kidding me, God?  People are counting on me?  Teachers are waiting for the lessons I’ve promised them.  And you are telling me to be still?  Can’t you just help me get these lessons done so they can be printed and distributed?

“Be still.”

And so…I have no choice but to be still.  Well, I can clean my house while waiting for inspiration.  I can look at Facebook.  I can play a game on my iPad.   

But, is that really being still?  Probably not.  I’ve now turned God’s advice to be still into plain old procrastination.

Until this week.  

I faced the mocking bag of supplies in my office and sat down at the computer.  Reviewed where I was in writing the current unit of lessons and was pleased at how much was actually ready.  Then I saw it…the lesson I had left hanging.  Jacob’s night of wrestling with God.  Ugh….what a difficult story.  I really just don’t even get it.   It’s such a strange story.  But, it’s got to get done, so let me just begin.

So, I start by rereading the passage.  Which leads me to needing to read passages from the lesson before.  Which takes me on a hunt to figure out a few contextual things.  And by the time I’ve done all that it’s time for a break!

So I sleep on it.  God wakes me up early the next morning still wrestling with getting this lesson complete.  He encourages me to just go sit at my desk and get started.  So I do.  I read what I’ve already written.  It’s okay, but I’m just not comfortable with it.  Not comfortable giving it to the teachers who will be teaching all the Methodist children in El Salvador.  I don’t want to give them something that is bad doctrine or just plain wrong.  So I struggle with the story in hopes to find an answer that I can be comfortable with – a way to share this story that feels true to the whole gospel message.

And God starts moving and together we begin writing.  He takes me all the way back to his promise to Abraham to bless him, give him land, and to make a great nation from him.  And then we look at his promise to Isaac which is the same.  And then his promise to Jacob to protect him and not leave him until his promise is fulfilled.  

And there I have a truth that can be taught.  We are to have faith in God that is strong, like the faith of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  Faith that is willing to wrestle with God until a blessing is given.  Faith that is able to wait still – for years at a time – until a blessing is fulfilled in God’s time.   

God is teaching me to be faithfully still.  To wait on him faithfully.  Not in procrastination, but in constant seeking of Him, in His word and in the world in which He has placed me.

Yeah, I have the intellectual ability to crank out a year’s worth of lessons in a month or so.  But that’s not what God has called me to do.  He has called me to a holy task of eternal impact.  And has called me as a woman who isn’t fully equipped, yet is fully trusting in Him.  And He regularly has to remind me to be still, waiting and trusting in Him.  Listening for the truths He would have me share with the teachers to teach and pass on to His precious children.  

Now that the Jacob lesson has been conquered, I hope to wrap up this unit with the story of Joseph.  I hope to get it finished this week.  Next it will be translated, edited, printed, and distributed to each of the 12 Methodist Churches in El Salvador by the end of October.  But my trust and faith are in God’s timing.  

Please pray that I will be faithfully still in finishing this unit.  Not moving forward without God’s inspiration and not sitting at a standstill of procrastination.  Pray that the lessons written will be ones that with the help of the Holy Spirit, have the power to shape hearts and transform lives for Jesus Christ.