Spiritual Life

Be Still

Our culture has a hard time being still. In our fast-paced, technocratic, constant stimulation age, we find it challenging to be still and not get bored. Harvard Health Publishing, from Harvard Medical School, reports that we can focus at work or in the classroom somewhere in the range of ten to fifty-two minutes at a time, depending on the person and the task (https://www.health.harvard.edu/mind-and-mood/focus-on-concentration). The Standard, published by the American School in London, tells us that, with the influence of social media, teenagers in 2013 had an attention span of about eight seconds. That’s one second shorter than the attention span of a goldfish. That same article in The Standard reported that teens spent an average of seven hours on their phones for entertainment purposes. (https://standard.asl.org/27705/uncategorized/social-media-causes-attention-spans-to-drop/). We may be sitting in one place, but it seems that our attention is shifting at an incredibly rapid rate. Brown University Health, along with a host of other resources, has reported the negative impact on our brains, efficiency, and focus that all of our switching attention has created (https://www.brownhealth.org/be-well/multitasking-and-how-it-affects-your-brain-health). Their suggestion is to find ways to work or study without the constant distractions.

Christian Scripture has been telling us the same thing about undisrupted focus for a long time. Psalm 46 recounts the goodness of God and his role as our refuge—a place and person in whom we seek shelter from the chaos of this world. In the midst of the idea that God is our refuge from the chaos and clamor of life, God says, “Be still and know that I am God.” The last two stanzas of Psalm 46 end with the comment that God is our fortress; however, that is only true when we remain in the fortress. Our lives pull and push on us to run everywhere all at once. For us that push and pull is about the movement of our attention, the switching reels or tasks or songs in our mind. One of the dominant themes of the Bible is maintaining a focus on the Lord that brings about a stillness and peace to this life. In fact, Isaiah 26:3 promises, “You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you.” The pressing challenge of our day is quieting our minds and focusing on anything for more than the length of a social media clip. Yet, the Bible consistently encourages us to consider life in the stillness of an abiding connection with the Lord. In John 15, Jesus uses the analogy of the vine and the branches to challenge us to remain connected to him. As Pharaoh chased down the Israelites in the wilderness at the Red Sea, Moses encouraged the people to be still and be quiet as they watched the Lord fight on their behalf to set them free from the oppression of Pharaoh (Exodus 14:13–14).

This school year, CCS is focused on the command from Psalm 46:10 to “be still.” In the chaos of our fast-paced, social media dominated culture, we want to be people who find refuge, stillness, and peace in the presence of God. We take time in our schedule to read the Bible and pray, to unplug from the tech-saturated world, and to engage with the Lord because he is our refuge and our peace. We want to be people who live in those still moments with God, and who allow those moments to empower and shape the rest of our lives because of our relationship with the Lord. Being still means finding a focus on the Lord and allowing our relationship with him to reframe the rest of our lives. Being still means turning off all of the rapid distractibility of our culture and being quiet and intentional as we connect with the Lord for life and refuge from the chaos that surrounds us.