I have a hard time with stillness.

I can be still in the sit-down-and-don’t-move way, or the I-just-want-to-watch-this-awful-tv-show way. I can even be still in the this-is-too-big-for-me-so-God-has-to-intervene way and the that’s-too-small-to-worry-about way.

But it’s the medium stillness I struggle with. The pick-up-your-mat-and-walk stillness. The get-up-get-going-and-move-on stillness.

I struggle in that place, because I know God moves and works in partnership with our actions. Like when He parted the Red Sea as Moses lifted his arms. Like when He parted the Jordan River as the priests dipped their toes in. Like when the Bleeding Woman was healed the instant she reached out and touched His hem.

It’s that one-foot-in territory where it’s so hard to distinguish between being still and being a participant.

Am I supposed to be still and let the Lord fight for me (Exodus 14:14), or go dip in the Jordan seven times (2 Kings 5:14)?

Am I supposed to wait on the Lord (Isaiah 40:31), or walk up Mount Moriah and sacrifice what is dear to me (Genesis 22:12)?

And as I tug in both directions from the middle of the rope, I realize. That right there — that way thinking, that way of perceiving — is exactly where I go wrong every. single. time; I equate stillness with the act of doing still instead of being still.

When faced with these medium stillness situations, I continue to want to do being instead of be.

And He’s teaching me, again and again and again, that the whole point of stillness is not to sit back and do nothing, it’s to sink in and know Him. (tweet) In Hebrew, still means “to sink, relax, withdraw, sink down, let go, let drop.”

It’s not doing nothing — it’s letting go.

It’s not doing nothing — it’s to withdraw from it and into Him.

It’s stillness not for stillness’ sake, but in order to experience Him. Discover Him. To perceive and see, find out and discern, learn to know. And in the process of discovering and experiencing Him, it becomes clear whether or not there’s anything to do. 

It’s a mindset, is really what it is.

So this is part of my month-long challenge of being. To shift my mindset from one of doing to one of being; and by doing that, perceive and see and experience God. To really figure out what it looks like and what it means today. For me. 

Because here’s what I’m pretty confident of — it’s going to look different for you, and it’s it’s going to look different tomorrow. For you and for me. This being…it’s a perpetual state of being in the process of being, you know? And if something is always constant and always in the process of,  it can’t ever be the same. Can it?

Even in the time it took to type that sentence, I’ve changed, right? Even if it’s just atoms and cells and oxygen levels, I’ve changed. Somewhat. Somehow. Someway.

That’s what I’m trusting. That with every effort and attempt to still BE, I’ve changed and grown. Even if it’s just an atom of stillness that has succumbed, or a cell of knowing. Something somehow is changing inside of me.

I’m still and I’m being.

I’m still being.

Even now.