Get Still

As seen in the HEARTbeat and Village Voice

Get Still

                Remember the church you went to when you were a child? Most of us have fond

memories of our childhood church, with all the dark wood, the stain glass windows, and

the big wooden pulpit in the front. My childhood church was the First Methodist Church

in Greenwood, Arkansas. It was a stone building erected sometime in the early 1900’s.

The old sanctuary has long since been demolished for a newer, larger sanctuary, with

only a small portion of the offices kept for nostalgia. When I visit my home town, there

are occasions when I drive past the church and look at the remaining part of the old

church, and that’s when the memories come flooding back.

My father was active duty in the Army. We would move back to Greenwood, my

mother’s hometown, every time he deployed to a combat zone. It was the mid-1960’s

when my oldest memories were established. My mother and my grandmother would take

my older sister, my younger brother, and me to church every Sunday. My brother and I

would begin sitting next to one another, but when my mother’s patience ran out, she

would separate us by sitting in between. The pews were hard and a little boy’s behind

can only take so much. Eventually the shifting started from one side to the other just to

get some blood back in my behind. The urging would start from my mother and

grandmother, which didn’t work, so then came the pinching of the legs with the stern

whisper, “Get still!” I jokingly say I still have the scars to prove it.

God can give us a little pinch in our spirit sometimes to get our attention. We

move around in our daily life so fast. Our attention is directed here and there by sounds

and people. But I ask, have you ever just stopped in the hustle of your daily life and

listened?

I was recently stopped on the interstate in traffic jam. The interstate is I-40 and is

considered the main route across the U.S. in the south, so it gets an enormous amount of

use. Sitting absolutely still I was able to see things in a different way than moving at 70

miles per hour. I looked out my window and saw grass growing through the joints of the

concrete – grass! It was at that moment I realized God is present even in the midst of our

daily “traffic.”

God wants us to be still a little each day and just listen with our spiritual ears to

Him. He speaks a lot, but sometimes we are too busy to hear. Slow down and even stop

from time to time. Look around you and see the beauty of His creation. God has done

some magnificent work just for us! When you see it, thank Him for letting you have a

little part in it! So get still and let God show you His wonders!