We are in the home stretch of summer. Many of us have travelled, vacationed with family, or spent time at camp. There have been cookouts, days at the pool and a myriad of other outdoor activities. Hopefully, the summer offers time to relax, kick our feet up and enjoy having life slow down just a bit. In another month, the business and craziness of life is going to kick back into gear and we will be working (although most still work through the summer), heading back to school, playing sports, taking lessons, etc. When life becomes busy, it becomes even harder for us to find time to be still. Sometimes we never really grasp what it means be still. Even in the summer.
Psalm 46:10 says, “Be still and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.”
Why doesn’t God just say, “Know that I am God”? Why does He also say “Be still”? I think God knows that He designed us to know Him more but we can’t really do this when we are not completely focused on Him. We can only focus on Him if we are “still” and not trying to think of or do eight things at once.
In essence, we want to be like God. We think we are in control. We think we know what’s best for us. We want our life to go a certain way and if it doesn’t, we want to blame someone or something else. This comes to the surface often during the college application process for seniors. It’s not unusual or wrong to make a plan and to pursue a particular college or major. These are necessary steps and goals. However, as believers, if we place our identity in these things and begin to think that our success in this life relies on whether these aspirations or goals are met is a dangerous place to be. Suddenly we are placing the trust we should have in God’s plan for our lives in the plans that we have for ourselves or even the plans that others we know have for us.
Below are three ways that seniors (we all can benefit though) can “be still” through the college application process:
Keep a consistent quiet/devotional time. I understand this is easier said than done. We get in our routine, there is so much going on at once and we value our sleep, time with friends and leisure time more than spending 10-20 minutes with God each day. I have fallen victim to this myself multiple times, but I also know that if I can spend time with the Lord each day, “be still” and recognize that we need to communicate with Him and continue to grow in our knowledge of Him, the rest of your day(s) will be more joyful, stress free and you will be less anxious. Seniors, the more you read God’s Word, pray that He would guide and direct you through the college application process and trust in Him through this time, you will enjoy the process more and see the opportunities God provides as blessings and not, “well, that’s not what I wanted”.
Create time you will not use or be on your phone. There is a link to a great article below by Tom Reinke on how our cell phones are changing us. He gives six ways in the article but for this post I will emphasize one that I think pertains to being “still”. The third reason Tom gives is that we are “multitasking what should be unitasked”. He says, “we multitask everything, trying to think in two directions at the same time, trying to be in two places at the same time, trying to live in physical space and virtual space simultaneously”. Our phones get us to think that we can keep track of and manage more than we can. You might say to yourself that you can do four things at once on your phone but that isn’t how we were created. We were created for relationship and the college application process should be relational as well. We should be taking advantage of talking to college admission representatives at college fairs or college visits, wanting to interview if possible and calling an admissions rep on the phone sometimes to ask a question and not just e-mailing them. Tom goes on to say, “scripture calls us to a life of single-minded self-reflection that often gets thwarted by the hum of multitasking”. I heard of a phrase this summer that I am going to use more and more. It is “use your tongue, not your thumb”.
https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/six-ways-your-phone-is-changing-you
Get proper sleep! When are we most still in our lives? When we are asleep. When I hear someone is overwhelmed, stressed and anxious, the first question I normally ask is, “how much sleep are you getting each night?” Why, because sleep is very important to our physical and mental health and when someone thinks they have too much on their plate, the first thing in their life to go is sleep. They work until the late hours of the night trying to “do it all”, but all they do is end up getting sick, become irritable and not themselves to others and really stressed and anxious. We were created by God to need sleep and if we say to ourselves, “I can produce more and more by getting less and less sleep”, we are ultimately telling God, “I can be like you”, which is impossible because He is the most perfect, Holy and Sovereign God. John Piper wrote a great article about sleep (see link below) and he says at the end, “sleep is like a broken record that comes around with the same message every day: Man is not sovereign. Man is not sovereign. Man is not sovereign. Don’t let the lesson be lost on you. God wants to be trusted as the great worker who never tires and never sleeps. He is not nearly so impressed with our late nights and early mornings as he is with the peaceful trust that casts all anxieties on him and sleeps.” Seniors, you will be more busy this fall than you have ever been because on top of your school schedule and extracurricular activities you will be working on your college applications, don’t use this time as a reason to not get as much sleep. Manage your time well so you get the appropriate amount of sleep you need.
https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/a-brief-theology-of-sleep