When my family and I first moved to Tallahassee, there were two things we were warned almost immediately:
 
First, FSU football isn’t just football – it’s a religion.  Tread lightly. 
Second, no matter how humid it may have been in Central Florida, Tallahassee is worse.  The phrase “Florida’s armpit” has been used several times to describe this phenomenon.
 
Both have proven to be absolutely true. 
 
It’s that second warning, however, that has had the greatest impact on me and my family (sorry FSU football).  It’s not just hot and humid here; it’s insanely, uncomfortably, unbearably hot and humid. 
 
To combat the intense heat and humidity of our Tallahassee summers, my family has acquired a number of water toys over the past year.

Sprinklers and hoses, slip-n-slides and miniature splash pads have become regular parts of our summer days. 

Our kids absolutely love these things, and my wife and I love that a simple piece of plastic attached to a hose can provide a source of cooling, imaginative entertainment for hours on end. 

While the bigger kids prefer the water to spray wildly, Theo, our two year old, prefers the splashing and spraying of the hoses to be at a minimum.  In fact, much to our surprise (he’s a wild man when it comes to pretty much everything else), there are times when he prefers the water completely turned off and to just play in the puddles that accumulate on the plastic pads.

The problem is, whenever we turn down the water, the splash pad gets super muddy.  Originally, we thought this happened over time as the mud covering the kids was released into the water.

Upon closer inspection however, we realized the water in the pad was just as dirty when the sprayers were on high as when they were set at low.  In fact, the water was always dirty – we just couldn’t see that when the water was in motion.

What the wild water did was prevent us from seeing just how dirty the water had already become.  As long as the hose was on and the water was in motion, the dirt never settled.  However, once the motion of the water slowed, the dirt showed within it. 
 
Our lives are not much different. 

In a similar way, busyness does to us what the motion of the water did the splashpad – it keeps us from seeing ourselves as we really are. 

Busyness keeps us thinking things are better than they really are, cleaner than they really are, healthier than they really are.  As long as we keep going, as long as we don’t slow down, as long as we keep pace, the dirt in our lives doesn’t really show – the difficulties in our marriages can be overlooked, the sin in our lives can be ignored, our physical health can be sidestepped, the brokenness in our lives can be put off till another day. 
 
So long as we stay busy, as long as we don’t slow down, as long as we keep working hard, we never have to come face to face with the real condition of our lives. 
 
This Sunday, at Deer Lake Church we discussed how if we are going to be people who experience real joy even in joyless situations, we’ve got to:
1.     Take authority over our thoughts and feelings (James 1:2)

2.     Think rightly about who God is and what God is doing in the world (James 1:3)

3.     Be patient enough to listen to the honest condition of our hearts and souls (James 1:4)

But I suspect that if any of this is actually going to happen, we must then become people who are also quick to be still in God’s presence. 

Psalm 46:10 says, “Be still and know that I am God.”

For the Psalmist, being still and knowing God are inseparable.  If stillness is necessary to know God and we are created in God’s image, it stands to reason that it will also take stillness to know ourselves.  If we’re going to be people who take authority over our emotional status, if we’re going to learn to think rightly about God and be quick to listen to in inner state of our souls, stillness is key.

This week, take some time to be intentionally still before God. 

Turn off the TV for a time.  Close down social media for a bit.  Put down the newspaper.  Walk away from the noise, wherever the noise is coming from, and intentionally seek God through stillness.  If we’ve got time to binge our favorite show, we’ve got time to be still before God.  Too often it’s not a lack of time, but a misappropriation of priorities.

Read the scriptures slowly, patiently, prayerfully.  Spend some time in prayer bringing your whole self before God.  Sit, wait, listen, rest.  Resist the urge to rush, to run from one thing to the next, so you can be fully present right where you are, just as you are.  Go for a walk and listen for God’s voice in the wind, the rain, the birds, and summer sky.  Clearly these aren’t mandates, just options meant to help us see that stillness isn’t opposed to seeking God; stillness is opposed to seeking everything else. 

Stillness isn’t laziness; stillness is the rejection of a busyness that exhausts itself in pursuit of lesser things – things other than God.  If anything, we Christians today tend to be busy with the things of life and lazy when it comes to the Source of Life.  This is why when Jesus wrapped up His teaching on worry, he ended with these words: “Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” ~ Matthew 6:33 (NIV)

Stillness is ultimately an expression of faith; it’s an active faith that trusts God enough to help us face and work through the messy parts of our lives and to receive from God what human busyness can never truly give us: peace - transcendent, deep, life-giving peace. (Philippians 4:7)

I don’t know about you, but for me, that’s something absolutely worth slowing down for.