Stillness:How will you choose to fill it?

There is a Stillness in the wilderness.

I feel it most tangibly in the early morning hours. I feel it cover my being like the down comforter laying over me. Heavy and warm.

It is a dangerous Stillness that creeps under the surface of my whole self.

Dangerous because it is empty and begs to be filled. 

It is empty of activities, lists, to-dos, have-tos, friends, family, familiarity, normality, routine.

It is a Stillness full of time and space and possibility.

It is the Stillness we all long for!  A break from the busy, a break from the mundane, a break from the whirring spin of life, the fast steady pace of what we perceive as purpose-filled living.  It is the Stillness we all long for, yet when it becomes available, it is so foreign and unknown that the ground beneath you feels unstable, unsure. The bed I lay in feels safer than the world outside my door, but even from that perceived haven, the Stillness beckons to be filled.

In these wee early hours, I feel helpless. I feel forgotten. I look at the wide, empty expanse of my days--dry and barren--and I feel lost. I feel like purpose--the activities, the lists, the to-dos, the friends, the family--the things I always mistakenly fall back on as what defines me--they are all gone, all missing. 

And there is a hopelessness,  a uselessness, a loneliness that lurks at the edges of this wilderness Stillness. It wants to seep like a sponge into the dryness. It wants to be absorbed into my soul and take residence.  It wants to usher in depression.

Ah, but not today.

I know this enemy too well. I know the pit into which it drags. By God's grace I have learned the early warning signs--the sleepless, worrisome nights, the urge to sleep your day away, the desire to do nothing because everything feels too hard--I know these feelings well, and as the age old saying goes, knowing is half the battle!

No. Every morning, every moment the enemy tries to creeps into my day, I know now I have a choice.

I can choose Joy. I can choose Jesus. I can choose to fill the Stillness with His presence instead of my enemy's, the world, or my flesh.

I can reach for my Bible instead of the snooze button or more covers to pull over my head. (Psalm 119:105)

I can breathe deep the gift of this Stillness,  exhaling gratefulness for no time constraints,  no schedule,  nothing that God hasn't ordained. (1 Thessalonians 5:18, Psalm 139:16)

I can count my blessings and enjoy them instead of counting the minutes on my clock or the number of tasks on my calendar. (Matthew 6:19)

I can believe and trust that God has a plan for my day in motion instead of believing that my day is defined by the number of accomplishments I have planned for myself. (Proverbs 16:9)

I have a choice to make.  A battle to win in those small moments. (Ephesians 6:12)  I need to capture the emotion and reconcile it to God's Word.  It's time to use the full armor of God I've been given and wield the Sword to His glory and His victory in my life. (Ephesians 6:10-18)

I choose Joy!  I choose Jesus!

And in that choice, I reach for my devotional and my Bible.  Ashamedly, I do this somewhat reluctantly.  It's not always easy to choose the better thing.

And in the words of my devotional I find a beckoning from my Lord to come away with Him, to put the world with "it's nonstop demands" on hold instead of Him, to stop buying into the world's lie that more is better--"more meetings, more programs, more activities," to choose the better thing that can never be taken away from me.  To choose Jesus, to choose Joy. (Jesus Calling by Sarah Young, July 17)

The Stillness beckons to be filled, and I can choose to fill it with Jesus, but how?

I then open my Bible and read the chapter that comes after the one I read yesterday:
Psalm 143--with my sidebar thoughts as I read this....

Hear my prayer, O Lord,
Give ear to my supplications!
Answer me in Your faithfulness, in Your righteousness!
2 And do not enter into judgment with Your servant, (The best and worst of us have bad days, down days, low moments, doubts, and moments of stumbling, this is me right now, Lord, stumbling....)
For in Your sight no man living is righteous. (See, even if I was busier, living more purposefully, it wouldn't make me more righteous in God's sight.  Why do we still strive?....)
3 For the enemy has persecuted my soul; (My fleshly mind is on a rampage....)
He has crushed my life to the ground; (I feel helpless, forgotten, and lost....)
He has made me dwell in dark places, like those who have long been dead. (My mind and emotions take me to the pits of despair....)
4 Therefore my spirit is overwhelmed within me;
My heart is appalled within me. (I am weak and I know it and I feel it and I hate myself for being weak.  I hate that this flesh gets the best of me more times than I like....What to do Lord???)

5 I remember the days of old; (Remember everything you've just come through.  Remember the Big God who parted the Red Sea.  Remember every small blessing along the way.  Remember....)
I meditate on all Your doings; (Keep His word before you.  Put these verses on a card, be aware of these truths, think about them every moment you feel the enemy creeping....)
I muse on the work of Your hands. (Let your mind mull over the meanings of Scripture, the truths in this passage and others.  Be amazed by the work of the Lord in everything around you.  Everything....)
6 I stretch out my hands to You;
My soul longs for You, as a parched land. (Trust fall into God's arms once again.  He is the deepest desire of your heart....)

7 Answer me quickly, O Lord, my spirit fails;
Do not hide Your face from me, (Lord!  I know You hear me.  Show your grace, your favor upon me in this hard moment....)
Or I will become like those who go down to the pit. (Or this will happen....)
8 Let me hear Your lovingkindness in the morning; (I'm here Lord, bright and early...)
For I trust in You; (I do.  I really do....)
Teach me the way in which I should walk; (You show me what my day should hold.  I will be open and available and will just keep doing the next thing until You change my course...)
For to You I lift up my soul. (I am Yours alone, O Lord.  All of me, all in....)
9 Deliver me, O Lord, from my enemies; (Crush these thoughts and emotions.  Bring them under the power of Your will, Your truth, Lord....)
I take refuge in You. (You are my safe place....)

10 Teach me to do Your will,
For You are my God; (Amen!...)
Let Your good Spirit lead me on level ground. (Level out my emotions.  Stop the roller coaster that leaves me anxious and edgy and unsure....)
11 For the sake of Your name, O Lord, revive me. (Give me new fervor for Your glory alone...)
In Your righteousness bring my soul out of trouble. 
12 And in Your lovingkindness, cut off my enemies
And destroy all those who afflict my soul, (Be the downfall of all those thoughts that plague me, so I can fully live to glorify you in all my thoughts and actions.)
For I am Your servant. (True and Amen.)

And the Stillness has been filled.  In a brief 20-30 minutes of time, God filled the Stillness with all that He planned for it to be filled with--simply Himself. (Acts 17:28)

And I no longer felt helpless, forgotten, lost or without purpose.  I felt full of His presence.  I felt Joy. And so that is exactly how God filled my Stillness with Joy instead of how I could have filled it with Emptiness.  How my day with no agenda became filled with a grateful fervor to do laundry, pay bills, cook, clean, and love on my kids.  How I ended up having time to spend 30 minutes on a phone call with a credit card telemarketer, relaying the story of our recent transition, and open and available to give God all the glory for my attitude and perspective.  How that lady expressed a longing for more of that in her life, and how I was able to tell her it's all available by having a relationship with Jesus.

A stranger got to experience my Jesus through me today because I let Him fill my Stillness instead of trying to fill it myself.

And isn't that really why we are here on earth?  Isn't that exactly what God calls us to do?  To be His ambassadors? (2 Corinthians 5:20) To be the ones that tell the stories of His love, His faithfulness, His goodness, His glory? (Psalm 145:10-13) How can I be open and available to do this when I'm too busy filling my own Stillness of soul with Busyness of day?

And folks it's really not that my day changed all that much.  I still would have had to do laundry, pay bills, cook, clean and love on my kids.  But I would have accomplished all those things just to check them off my list, to make myself feel full of purpose instead of doing them already knowing I am full of purpose. Already being full of purpose before my day ever really began.

Every day, every moment, before the onslaught of each of our enemy's attacks, we have a choice to make.  Will you fill your Stillness with the Emptiness of your own fleshly desires?  Or will you fill your Stillness with the fullness of Jesus Christ who is the deepest desire of every living soul? (Psalm 37:4)

The choice is yours. Choose wisely.  I choose Jesus.  I choose Joy! (Psalm 16:11)