I’ve been on the road today.  Not as much as some people, but more than I usually am.  While driving I saw all sorts of distracted driving: texting, talking, make-uping, eating, singing and seat-dancing.  As I made my way down the interstate and I was thinking about all the media coverage on distracted driving and the statistics on accidents caused by distracted drivers, I remembered a funeral I did for a high school student who drove off the road and into a deep ravine.  After the investigation was over, it was determined he was reaching for a CD and took his eye off the road long enough to veer off and lose control. 

My mind wandered a bit further, as its prone to do while driving long distances and thought about distracted living.  Its perhaps not as deadly as distracted driving, but I wonder about how many people experience fulfilling lives when they are perpetually distracted from living.  The way I’m thinking of distracted living is when we are focused on appearances, acceptance, approval, fitting in, being happy, consuming food to feel good—or at least not feel bad—and consuming goods or filling a shopping cart in order to avoid the empty feeling inside, focusing on being right all the time, living in perpetual fear and a host of other distractions that can rob us of our time and purpose.  Even our families can become distractions when we focus on them in a certain way. 

A favorite scripture passage of many and familiar to even more is Psalm 46:10 which starts with the command “Be still, and know that I am God!”  When was the last time you were still?  Really still.  Still long enough to experience yourself getting antsy with your mind thinking about stuff you need to get done or remember to pick up at the grocery store and an appointment you need to make or a person you need to call or a bill you need to pay or…  Before you know it, you’re distracted from being still. 

Of course, the verse isn’t just “Be still” like some kindergarten teacher who has a roomful of squirmy five year olds.  We are told to “be still and know that I am God.”  So perhaps all our distractions are one way that we don’t make time for God, don’t become familiar with the One who created and sustains us, avoid facing the One to whom our occasional prayers are directed.  Is stillness the only way to know God is God?  I don’t think that’s the point of the verse.  There are certainly many ways to encounter God, but our busy-ness and our distractedness and our frantic efforts to keep moving keep us from that encounter, because if we stop and sit with ourselves for a few moments we might not like who we’ve become or what we’re doing with the one life we’ve been given. And if we can see that on our own, then imagine what God might show us!

When we are feeling worn down and a need a break from our distracted living, many of us go on vacation to get a change of pace, but that’s exactly what it is: a change of pace.  And consider the word: Vacation, i.e. to vacate, to get out of the place that we are, to leave, to depart.  That doesn’t sound like being still.  And if your vacations are like my vacations then they aren’t necessarily restful.  I come home tired from vacations.  I must be doing something wrong. 

Be still and know that I am God.  The rest of the verse has God saying: I am exalted among the nations, I am exalted in the earth.  We are told to be still and know God who is exalted internationally and exalted in creation.  Sit with that a moment.  Think about that.  God, the Creator of everything we see, including ourselves, the distant stars and the galaxies that are so far off that they look like a single star to us, the planets and all the living things on earth (and we’re still discovering new plants and animals!), God is telling you to be still in order to know your Creator.  God doesn’t have to tell us that.  But God does.  And God reminds us who it is telling us to be still.  And the stillness we are told to become is the opposite of the frantic distractedness we adopt and live in order to avoid feeling the despair and fear that can overwhelm us. 

Psalm 46 starts off with these words: God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.  Therefore we will not fear, though the earth should change, though the mountains shake in the heart of the sea; though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble with its tumult.

I remember reading those words many times quietly and publicly after 9/11/01.  People of all beliefs and no beliefs came together seeking solace, comfort, answers, community, strength.  And the words they heard were “be still.”  We can easily find ourselves focused on our own resources and our own power and our own ingenuity in order to quell our fears.  We now have Homeland Security and a neat little color-coded alert system and we go through layers of scanning and surveillance in order to fly anywhere.  For all of that, I don’t think many of us feel safer.  And so we turn to our distractions in order to keep our blood-pressure in check. 

Try to be still.  Start with short periods of stillness, a minute or two and then increase the time to five minutes and then ten.  When you are able to go a stretch of time being still, really still, then start letting that stillness to sneak into our day at different times and in different situations.  Perhaps you’ll discover that the stillness of those moments begins to fill your heart in a way that doesn’t require you to actually be still, but to be a stillness in the midst of other’s anxiety and chaos.  If that happens, then realize that its not you, its that you are coming to know and trust God. 

© Stephen Carl