Being still

Over the past few months, I have had some time to recover from overloading my life in the past years and not taking time needed for rest. It's amazing how our body reacts to overload and stress we were never designed to carry.

I've failed to understand how important it is for us to have rest and margins of time and energy to carry us through crisis and storms. Not having these nescssary margins in my life has resulted in a multitude of health issues, some of which have even caused me to be hospitalised over the past months.

Everyone needs to store up reserves; reserves of energy, reserves of finances, reserves of rest. We so often deplete ourselves with too many responsibilities, ones that seem good at first, even helping others, but which in reality drain us and eat at us like paracites. Our lives get busier, more involved with doing "good things", expending our resorces to the extent that we run the risk of becoming as an empty shell, suseptible to be tossed around in a storm like a ship without a ballast, or a sailboat without a keel.

Storms do come into our lives, they cannot be avoided. But how do we prepare ourselves to navigate through the storms so we make it through in tact, without it costing our health and wellbeing? By proper nutrition, rest, exercise, in other words being fit before rough storms hit. We love easy sailing, when things go well, and in our optimism we sometimes push ourselves too hard, neglecting to check the reserves we need for rough seas. This also includes reserves of wisdom, to know our limits, to know what to do in future difficulties we so often prefer to deny.

One of my favourite Psalms (16:10) says "be still and know that I am God". I've recently gained a new appreciation for stillness. In the midst of a storm, where your boat is rocking from side to side, you're nautious, waves are crashing against the bow, maybe your even taking on water, it's difficult to be still. It's difficult to listen to instruction, or even read instruction whe you are being tossed around. Being unprepared and waiting to call out to God for help in the midst of a storm is not quite the same as taking time before we sail being still, listening, being wise and preparing in advance of a potential storm.

Imagine the wisdom we could obtain about avoiding or weathering a storm before it hits... Think of the reserves we could build into our lives, in training and preperation for difficulties. Life is not clear sailing, and anyone who thinks so is fooling themselves. For most of us there are rough seas ahead, but God has promised to provide us with all we need to get through storms, if we'd only prepare and equip ourselves accordingly. That means being still, listening, training and preparing with all the reserves we need to carry us through.