"I have stilled and quietened my soul." (Psalm 131:2)
I've been busy lately. Last week was a busy week - Ozone, Church meeting, home group. When I wasn't out, I was busying myself with doing things. I find genuinely stopping hard. Not in the sense of relaxing, I spend plenty of time relaxing, but I all too rarely spend time reflecting, stopping to think, to listen to God, to meet with God.
All this means when I do stop to spend time with God, my mind is still racing through the challenges of the day. I'm thinking how to overcome the next hurdle in whatever I'm working on; I'm trying to remember what I need to do this evening; I'm mentally going through what I'm doing in the coming week.
All this because I'm out of the habit of stopping. I rush from task to task, activity to activity.
I've tried to change this in the way I work. This week I've been closing out of my e-mail programs and notifiers, except to check every few hours. At the cost of being slightly less connected I am slightly less frenetic. I spend too long each day trying to switch between lots of different thoughts and jobs, which means that my mind is still frantic when I come home. Closing out of my e-mail means I don't feel the need to read things the moment they arrive, regardless of what I'm thinking about at the time.
I want to know the peace of God. I want to know that centredness that comes from having spent time quietening my mind.
The only way to do it? Stop.
I need to stop doing the things I do not need to do. I need to simplify - to find ways to relax that help me meet with God. I love spending time learning by reading God's word. I used to love talking to God, walking in quiet streets in the evening. It's not as if I don't have time - I spend a lot of my free time right now doing things that help me relax, but which do not help me find quiet, and rest.