Be Still

Lately God has been teaching me about stillness. I gotta admit: it’s torture. I’m a doer, an over-committer, and a man of action, so for God to tell me to chill out and not do squat really sucks. It’s healing and I have no doubt that this is changing the course of the rest of my life, but gosh golly does it suck. When I have a problem, I want to charge headlong into it to solve it. But sometimes the way you solve a problem is by not acting on it. Some problems are solved by choking out the impulse and maintaining a stable life. Let me give you an example.

One of the things God has been showing me is that a big part of why I stay busy is because of FOMO (that’s “Fear Of Missing Out,” in case you didn’t know.) There’s so much going on and I feel like I have to be a part of all of it. Every time I hear about something going on, I start to panic. “Should I be going to this? What if it’s the best thing in the world and I say no and miss it?” The funny thing is: I have missed plenty of “big things” already, and my life barely skips a beat! I don’t feel bad, it’s part of the memory. One year I was in the bathroom on new year’s eve when the clock struck midnight. Actually, it’s probably even more memorable because I screwed up the timing. Fomo is powerful, but it doesn’t have to be. 

I think the big reason FOMO always gets to me is because of a quote I once heard. It comes from an old Disney movie called “The Hunchback of Notre Dame.” The movie centers around quasimodo who lives up in the belltower of the Notre Dame cathedral. He hides out up there and watches the people day in and day out. One day the people down below are preparing for a festival and Quasimodo is thinking about sneaking out to attend. Since he has no real friends, he talks to the gargoyles of the belltower, and since this is Disney, they bring those gargoyles to life. One of the gargoyles drops this golden nugget of a quote: 

“if watching is all you’re going to do, then you’re going to watch your life go by without ya!” 

Dear friends, I can honestly say that quote has been stuck to me like a tattoo since I first heard it at four years old. I have always been more of a quiet observer, often happy to watch the world around me. Sometimes interacting feels utterly exhausting and makes me less able to pay attention to everything going on around me. I feel like I’m learning less about people because I have to interact with them. But then this quote hits me, along with a wave of panic. What if I’m missing out? What if there’s more to life than this and I am missing it by being passive and boring? What if there’s so much more to life than this and I’ll never find out? Questions like these pester me like a plague of locusts, nibbling my skin and leaving me drained and exhausted.

But I have found that when you commit to plans you don’t genuinely care about, they don’t typically go very far. Sure, it might have a little payoff every now and then, but if you sow compromise, you will reap compromise. That’s not to say it isn’t still tough to stay home or go to the movies when everyone is telling you to go to the superbowl party, but there’s a contentment that comes with doing your own thing. I have also found that there are definitely enough interesting things to fill your schedule with once you start to find your groove, and most activities involve other people, so you’ll wind up getting what you need either way. 

 But it’s easy to fill up with doubts when you start to slow down. For me, I often find myself cramming my schedule full to compensate for my lack of wisdom. I’m not sure which path to take, so I try to take them both! I have gotten good at being busy all the time, but the stress is guaranteed to catch up to me. God has been walking me through calming down and not acting on my need to be busy. 

It’s getting to a point where it’s actually kind of funny. I had a moment last night where I was thinking about something and I started panicking. “What if I’m not doing enough?” Were my exact words. But almost as immediately as I said them, I snapped back, telling that voice to be silent. I think it’s no coincidence that I have also started a book on identity in Christ, specifically as a man. But that whole idea has always angered me. That doesn’t make any sense! That has always felt like such a textbook thing to say. It has never really meant anything to me personally. Can we unpack this and put it into plain english? I’m going to give it a shot. 

For years, I could tell you all the answers. I could regurgitate the whole story about how God died for you and how He loves you and on and on we go. It has never really meant anything to me. The kingdom story needs oomph, an oomph that I have been lacking. It never got me excited like knowing I had just won the lottery. I mean, if God loves me so much, how come nothing really changes? I mean, I’m still living the same boring life day in and day out. What’s up with that? What’s the difference that is made in everyone’s lives that I am missing out on? 

Here’s what I am starting to land on. Like I said when I first started off, I don’t have to be perfect. I don’t have to do or be more in order to chill out. Everyone has that moment where they think they will “arrive.” They’ll say things like “if only I had a house, a kid, a wife, more money,then I'd be happy. Then I’d be able to say that I have arrived.” As a man, it means I don’t need to be jacked, stacked, or even taken. It means I can say no to all those things if I need to. Those things go from being a desperate need to a fun game. A game I can play when I like but put down if it isn’t serving me like it should.

But if we’re saying “no” to all these things, what are we saying yes to, and what does that look like? Well, if we took all these other needs and threw them out like old furniture, we’re stuck with an empty room, right? So the question is: do we leave the room empty and say we need absolutely nothing or what? Nope, the room doesn’t stay empty. There’s one thing you should focus on putting in that room: Jesus. That’s a nice band-aid answer, but what does it mean? It means read the bible. Pray before you read the bible and ask God what He wants you to hear from it, from Him, today. I have been cruising through some of the “duller” parts of the bible, the parts that everyone says you should skip over. Even there, God has had something for me. It will feel like hearing a song that comes on at the right time. It will stick in your brain to come back for later. It will feel real and personal, almost like someone is speaking to you, because guess what? Someone is! 

But you have to focus on this as your one need, you have to take this whole thing seriously. It can’t just be a checkmark on your list, it can’t just be your morning routine. In time, you need to treat this like your only guide. You can always get help, you can always ask for others to show you the way, you can read books by those who have been doing this longer, but life can no longer be about just what your gut says, or what makes you happy right now. It means learning a whole new way of doing things. It’s rough sometimes. I have days where I don’t get it. But usually after God brings me through something, He shows me what it’s all about. I’m thick and slow sometimes, so it takes time, but I’m getting there. And I believe you will too.

So, what does it mean to have an identity in Christ? It means your needs boil down to one thing: the King. And He has already said you have arrived, and you can’t un-arrive, so you will always be covered. Whether or not you have money, a spouse, or even a house, you’ll still be “arrived.” You don’t have to do squat to be worth a whole bunch, because He already died and made it so. Just go ahead and feel that weight fall off your shoulders. The next question is: what do you do with that?That’s the fun part: you were still made to fulfill all those needs you have, just to do them better. A buddy of mine brings this one up a lot: If there are no stakes, why would we do much? Wouldn’t we just lie around on the couch all day because we’re already made pretty dope? Um, probably not. If you think that’s the case, I don’t think you understand what has been given to you. What God shows us is that we have been given freedom to chase something better. Before we took our own crappy way, the first man actually worked in the garden. It wasn’t as punishing, but he still worked. I think this means we were made for doing. We weren’t meant to sit like a soda can, trying to keep a lid on everything. Sure, there are bits and pieces of ourselves that we need to say no to, but we were meant to be fulfilled in the long run. We are just so backwards that we don’t know how to get there anymore. 

So identity in Jesus means you focus on Him, and He works your life out. It means you can be free from needing to be great, rich, famous, or popular. It means you let Him take care of where your life should go. And the minute you tell Him “let’s go,” you have arrived. No more waiting for the next thing to be happy. Happy is now! Read the bible, focus on what it says, and throw out anything that disagrees with it! Ok, not literally, but it’s knowing there’s a right, and a wrong. The sky can’t be blue and red at the same time, and it’s God, through the bible, that gets to decide which it is. Not your gut, not your eyes, not your own brain, God. Sometimes it might not make sense, but that’s part of the plan. Heck, I started this post because nothing made sense! It happens! But, in time, your eyes will open as they need to. You will get what you need to in order to make it work. All you have to do is read the bible and listen to what it has to say to you. God will take care of the rest.

So be still. Chill out and get rid of all the crap that’s weighing you down. Get rid of all the things you think you need that aren’t actually doing anything for you. Trust that someone upstairs has your back, and that it actually means something. It can be confusing, it can be strange, but it can also be very good. 

It’s funny, for the guy who is decorated as “mr. insightful,” I really just put on my idiot cap, didn’t I? It’s strange, because this doesn’t actually surprise me about myself. I can think a lot, but it’s a long way to travel between my brain and my feet. I get what I’m saying when I’m saying it, but I can be dense when it comes to picking up someone else’s ideas. But that’s just life sometimes, I guess. I like to think it also helps reset the expectations y’all have of me. I can be just as numb-skulled as anyone else. 

I hope you have enjoyed something fresh from Sir Endar’s keep. This was definitely a new challenge to try to make sense of this part of my brain. I hope it has done you some good, because it has helped me as well. 

Until next time

Cheers!