Quietness & Stillness
Have you ever been to an arcade? The noise. The lights. The commotion. There is just so much going on, it is hard to process everything. It is quite chaotic. If you don’t go in with a headache you will likely leave with one.
Since my stroke two years ago, my brain struggles to differentiate between close up sights and sounds and those sights and sounds that your brain knows as background. This excessive sensory input overload creates chaos in my brain. There is often just too much to process simultaneously. Painting helps my brain interpret, communicate, and unload the sensory overload it often experiences.
The world we live in is perpetually in motion. Everywhere we go, there is noise. We are being bombarded with news feeds all day and night. If you are like me, you find it hard to shut off the never-ending stream of activity that fills our minds and souls. And if you are like many people, the thought of silence is frightening. So even in those few times when we get away from the rat race, we fill that void with sights, sounds, noises.
In this fast-paced world, we need to intentionally build in times to slow down. We must push the pause button from time to time to allow our soul to settle. It is often in that quietness that we find the presence of the Lord. While standing on Mount Horeb, Elijah heard God’s voice not in the wind or the earthquake or the fire, but in the low whisper that followed.
Psalm 131, while only three verses in length, expresses David’s walk with God, in which he has complete contentment because of a life fully submitted to, and trusting in, God – “O LORD, my heart is not lifted up; my eyes are not raised too high; I do not occupy myself with things too great and too marvelous for me. But I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother, like a weaned child is my soul within me. O Israel, hope in the LORD from this time forth and forevermore.”
Staying in the psalms, we find the psalmist encouraging the godly to “be still” and “know” that the Lord is God (46:10). To “be still” is to cease striving and the word “know,” it is the Hebrew word yada, which references not just a casual “knowing of” God, but rather, knowing God in a very personal and very intimate way. It is knowing deeply not just knowing about. Think of knowing intimately your spouse or best friend as compared to simply knowing about George Washington.
In this world, slowing down does not happen by happenstance. It takes commitment. Often requiring us to go against the flow. Are you willing to be intentional about building a rhythm of quietness and stillness? My brain also can communicate its quietness and stillness, most often through abstract beach scenes, such as the one below.
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