Stilling Your Mind
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You need to know that when you go to be alone with the Lord. Right? It takes a certain amount of mental discipline to calm your mind. Because in this day and age, our minds are constantly bombarded with stimulation. Road signs, Street signs. People. Cities. Traffic. Work. Phones. Entertainment. YouTube. Facebook. Social media in general. And these things cause the mind to be in a state of busyness, even frenzy.
But there’s a reason that the Bible often speaks of being still and knowing that he is God. Because there is a place in your mind, in your spirit and need, in your mind and your spirit to be still.
It’s important that you get alone with the father.Several times a week. And even it’s important that you go away with him, whether it be for a half a day or a day or three days or a week. But every so often that you go away with him and you get away from your house, you get away from your work and your chores, and you relax lying down, and you sit before him and listen.
And my favorite thing is to get away for a week in a place like this and lying down so that I can just sit with him. But it takes about three days to wind down. Once you’ve set up camp, or once you’ve unpacked at the Airbnb and gone by the meals or whatever it is you need to do to set up for your needs.
It takes about three days. So in those first moments, whether you’re in your home for an hour, whether you’re away with him in that first portion, your mind is wrestling you. Some part of you doesn’t want to be here. Some part of you says this is too hard. Some part of you says it may not be worth it, or that you can’t, but you can.
He made you to be still. So he has equipped you with everything that you need to be. Still. But it takes mental discipline. It takes preparation. For instance, here I’m. I’m out in the woods with him. But it took days of work and even weeks of packing and preparing and planning to get here. Because I jealously guard these moments to be alone with him.
And if you’re sitting alone in your room, the corner of your bedroom, or if you have a full closet, if you have a whole office. You have to protect that space. You have to keep it free of distractions. You have to turn off your phones and your devices.
I’m going on and on about this because I want you to see that it takes a fight to be still. But the more often that you do it, the more that you are trained for righteousness, the easier it becomes.
If you are young and your path is laid out before you with college and you’re just executing the plan. You may not realize your need for him yet, but soon, very soon, you are going to have questions and you are going to have needs that cannot be answered by anything but a living God. And once you have realized your need for a Savior, once you have realized a need for a protector, you must learn to be still before him.
So please fight for that time. Fight for your ability to be still. From a practical standpoint, you cannot have your cell phone near you. Text messages if you want it. If you must have a digital Bible, then at least put your phone in airplane mode or do not disturb mode.
With those things, snicker you in. And there is something holy about having a paper copy of the Bible in front of you that you can study. You can mock up. You can write dates in the margins of when the Lord gave you that scripture for encouragement or direction, and you can look back over time and see his pattern in his promises for you.
Fight for your love for the father, the son, and the Holy Spirit.
They want to have a relationship with you. They want to be near you. It excites the father. When you go into the word and you look for the secrets that he has got buried there for you, makes his heart happy. When your mind and your spirit are illuminated with the truths that he’s showing you.
He wants to guide you. But you must come and worship. You must come and sit at the feet to hear his voice. Don’t get angry that you can’t hear his voice. If he’s not been in the word consistently. If you’ve not been in prayer consistently.
Instead, use it as motivation. To grab hold of the promises of God for yourself.