But I Don’t Have Time to Stop

 Be still and know that I AM

            --God

Psalm 46:10

               4 Then somewhere he said this about the seventh day of creation: God rested on the seventh day from all his works.[a] 5 But again, in the passage above, God said, They will never enter my rest![b] 6 Therefore, it’s left open for some to enter it, and the ones who had the good news preached to them before didn’t enter because of disobedience. 7 Just as it says in the passage above, God designates a certain day as “today,” when he says through David much later, ‘Today, if you hear his voice, don’t have stubborn hearts.’

            8 If Joshua gave the Israelites rest, God wouldn’t have spoken about another day later on. 9 So you see that a Sabbath rest is left open for God’s people. 10 The one who entered God’s rest also rested from his works, just as God rested from his own.

First summary of the message

            11 Therefore, let’s make every effort to enter that rest so that no one will fall by following the same example of disobedience, --Hebrews 4:4-11

" But I Don’t Have Time to Stop"

How many times have I whispered those words under my breath?  It is a constant frenzy of activity that all too often drives us from an event to a meeting to a project to a ‘situation’…the list never ends.  We just know that if we stop, everything that we are holding so precariously will simply collapse on the floor around us, and we’ll have an even bigger mess.  For this state of frenzy, I have many examples as to why this is untrue, but I will share two.

In his book “The Deep Change Field Guide,” Robert Quinn shares the story of a hermit that lived in the woods.  Each summer he would cut enough wood to heat his cabin through the winter. One day, however, he heard the weather forecast that a huge storm was coming much earlier than previous years.  It would be here later that day.  The hermit sprinted to his woodpile. As he picked up his saw to begin, he could see that he had not yet taken the time to sharpen the blade. “No matter,” he thought,” I just need to get as much done as I can.” He began to cut.  The more he cut wood, the duller the blade became.  He told himself over and over that he needed to stop and sharpen the saw, but he just kept cutting out of panic.  As the snow began to fall, he plopped exhausted beside a huge pile of uncut wood.

The second story goes like this: once upon a time, there wasn’t even time; there was nothing at all.  With words never before heard, God sang everything into existence – in 6 days. (don’t get lost in the millions of years / six days thing…hang on!) Then something truly amazing happened.  God wasn’t tired, didn’t need a sports drink, or an Epsom salt bath.  God did something to show us the pattern for our lives.  On the seventh day, God stopped and rested.

God heals and nurtures in the pauses of life.  When we are still, God speaks.  If we continue into the busyness of trying to bring order to chaos, we will never recognize when we get trapped in the perpetual movement instead of forward momentum.  I think that it is an evil voice that tells us that we must keep busy, especially when it’s doing God’s work.  We begin to think that doing church is the same as being the church.

Again, in Quinn’s DCFG, he says,”[people] prefer to stay where they are comfortable.  But they need an excuse to do so. ‘We have no time’ neutralizes personal responsibility.  That mentality lets [people] trade deep change  now for a crisis that will occur in the future… most of us tend to ignore warning signals that suggest a need for change. As performance levels fall, our stress goes up, and our vitality and drive wane. Our focus narrows, and we increase our commitment to existing strategies, making it difficult to change.” (page 19)

God wants us to break the cycle of self-destructive behavior.  In order to do that, we all need to take time to stop, to wait, and to be still.  When we do, God will speak and guide, and we will be blessed.

Grace and Peace,