Stillness is like coming to a center point and waiting. Not waiting on the starting block of a foot race.

Above is that point in the race where runners are poised for action. In contrast, the stillness we need more of in our lives is the stillness where we learn to wait in peace and collectedness. Listening for that still, small voice of God. The place where the promises below are fulfilled.

I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go;
    I will counsel you with my loving eye on you. Psalm 32:8 NIV

And when you turn to the right or when you turn to the left, your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, “This is the way; walk in it.”  Isaiah 30:21 NRSVUE

It takes practice to listen in this way. And practice leads to better listening during the hubbub of life. Can we agree unreservedly with Isaiah 50?

The Lord God has given me
    a trained tongue,
that I may know how to sustain
    the weary with a word.
Morning by morning he wakens,
    wakens my ear
    to listen as those who are taught.
⁵ The Lord God has opened my ear,
    and I was not rebellious;
    I did not turn backward. Isaiah 50:4-5 NRSVUE

I, for one, have a long way to go in yielding my ears to hear God and yielding my tongue to speak words of comfort and encouragement in due season! Listening, practicing stillness, will most assuredly get me to that goal more thoroughly than any other method I have ever found.

Holy and Mighty One help me to give myself over to this stillness and listening to Your voice, I pray.