The Work of Being Still

There is a kind of tiredness that sleep does not touch. It sits behind the eyes and under the ribs. You can feel it in the middle of a busy afternoon and again at two in the morning. It is the tiredness of carrying more than you were built to carry, for longer than you meant to.

To be still is harder than it sounds. Stillness is not the absence of activity; it is the presence of trust. We stay busy partly because busyness lets us believe the outcome depends on us. Stopping feels like risk. If I put this down, who will hold it?

The Psalms answer plainly. "Be still, and know that I am God." The stillness comes first, and the knowing follows. We are not asked to understand everything before we rest. We are asked to stop, and in the stopping, to remember who God is and who we are not.

Jesus made the same offer in warmer words. "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest." He does not scold the weary. He calls them. The invitation is not to a stricter schedule of prayer or a better system for coping. It is to a person.

So today, before the list, before the striving, try the harder work. Put something down. Sit with the quiet for a moment longer than is comfortable. Let the knowing come. You are not holding the world together. You never were.