Be Still.

I was ranting on the phone to Erica, ranting.  My words were all over the place; I wasn’t even making sense to myself, and all of my perfectly devised explanations of what was going on in my life fell to shreds in the form of one broken sentence: ‘I just have no clue what to do’.

I’d been praying not for days, not for weeks, but for years about the same thing over and over, and I STILL had no assurance about what I should do, which way I should go, or what was right for me.  I felt like a chaff in the wind, just getting blown everywhere.  Every time I thought I’d found the answer, I’d ended up with an uncertainty that let me know I just couldn’t possibly be there yet.

Erica was on the phone just letting me go on and on and on.  When I finally stopped talking she said, “You know I’ve just been praying this whole time and all God keeps saying is ‘Be still'”.  I felt the disappointment hit me like a ton of bricks. And the longer she spoke I felt tears cloud my eyes.  Then she started talking about some scriptures, and in my head I was just like God, not the scriptures, because that’s when it gets real, and you know you can’t fight it. Needless to say, I tried to take it like a pro.

We closed out with prayer and everything, but I would be a liar if I didn’t admit that for the rest of the night I was irritable, let down, and devastated.  I wanted God to give me the answers.  Hadn’t He seen my tears?  Hadn’t He heard my endless prayers?  Didn’t He know I just wanted to do what was right in His eyes? I’d been consistently reading my bible and praying!  I just wanted the answers–and all He’d basically said was Wait.

I don’t have the results yet.  I’m not writing this blog post from the mountain tops of my achievement or the ‘greener grass’ of the other side.  I’m still waiting.  Everyday I’m trying to ‘Be Still’.  Every night I have to battle in my mind to get the inner planner, that inner analyst in me to just chill out.  Because unless I’m in bed for the day watching Netflix and drinking coffee, being still is just not what I do.  I’m planning, prepping, writing out notes, squiggling reminders on a whiteboard, goal-setting, and researching new ideas!  So this is a struggle for me, but I know I’m not the only one.  In case you’re in this boat with me, let’s help each other out:  

I have some tips on How to Survive the Stillness.

1. Decide to get excited.

You probably feel like crap.  You probably feel like you have no reason to live (if you’re as dramatic as I am).  And you probably have no clue what you can be doing, if you’re in a time in your life where everything seems hopeless and still.  Decide that you are going to be excited about whatever God must be cooking up for you.  This is what gets me through!  There is something around the bend!  Let your optimism win this waiting game: Get. Pumped.

2. Tell your brain to shut up.

Tell every negative voice, even your own, to can it.  If everything seems to be at standstill in your life, despite all your attempts and all your tears and all your prayers, right now you are waiting on God.  Right now you are trusting Him.  Right now you are smack in the middle of His hands, because HE has decided to make it so.  There will be no phone call after phone call trying to get someone to give you some kind of revelatory word.  Find some cool videos to watch and pig out, or go hang out with some friends that you’ve been completely ignoring in the midst of stressing out about everything.  Do exactly what God is trying to get you to do: trust Him & chill.

3. Practice submitting to God mentally.

Being still before God can be tough, because you essentially really have no clue how things are gonna work out.  Is God planning something totally different from what I had expected?  How will I know?  When will He tell me?  Will I like it?  What if it’s not the answer I was hoping I would get?  These are all the types of questions that like to run around in someone’s mind–often as a mental attack to get you worried and doubting, but they are still pretty good questions.  It’s true:  God’s answer might be totally opposite of what you really thought you wanted; God’s answer might end up being something you don’t think you like at all.  During this time of being still before God and waiting on Him, you have to make up your mind that no matter what God decides to do for you, that you will choose to accept it, to trust Him, and to bow your knee to His authority.

This has been especially important for me, because I tend to already be excited about something and want things to go my way.  I’ve had to make the decision (because it’s not at all about feelings here) that even if God says no to what I thought I wanted a yes to, I’m gonna trust Him and walk the path He shows me. He’s God.  He knows us better than we know ourselves, and His love for us is immeasurable. He would not choose something for your life that He knew was not right for you, not perfectly suited for you, that wouldn’t bring you the most fulfillment, and ultimately bring your heart closer to Him and bring glory to

His name in this earth.

Asha.