As my family and I drove into a part of London this week, I was reminded of a period in my life when I was so busy with so many things that slowing down actually made me feel depressed.
I thought back to when my husband said that we needed to move out of the city if we were ever going to buy our first house. I was rebellious about it because of my own selfish desire to avoid the slowness and stillness of country life. Yet, the home we bought and still live in now was exactly what we could afford.
After we moved, I continued working in the city for another few years, until I had my first child. Looking back now, I can see that this was when God began to redirect my life. He began slowing me down. But despite the changes in my life and the demands that came with having a new baby, I resisted that stillness. All I wanted was to go back to my old life. I had an inherent desire for a fast-paced and busy life.
Little did I know that busyness and distraction are just some of Satan’s tactics to cause us to avoid making time for God and hearing His voice more clearly.
My busyness, and my constant need to avoid sitting with my own thoughts, had created a space where I had little room to hear God’s voice. Yet God, in His kindness and love, had an incredible amount of patience with me as He taught me to slow down and listen. He used a blessing like motherhood to change my desire for a fast-paced and busy life into a desire for a life of slowing down, removing things that take up my time when it shouldn’t and finding that stillness that I longed for but never realised I needed.
For so many years, slowness and stillness were frightening to me because I believed that what was making me feel depressed was the slowing down itself. But now, looking back, I can see that it wasn’t the stillness that was making me depressed. The stillness was creating a space where I was being confronted with truths that God was revealing to me—truths I didn’t want to face.
The anxiety and despair I was living with weren’t being dealt with. I was running away from my thoughts and feelings, suppressing them by filling my time so completely that I didn’t have to sit with what was going on inside me. And in doing so, I was also leaving very little space for God to speak into those things.
Every quiet moment I would be scrolling my phone, drowning in social media, emails, online shopping, messaging. At home I always stayed busy without properly resting. I managed on little sleep, excercising, meeting with friends and filled my work-schedule. I always had music on, always had to be around other people – every moment was filled with noise and busyness.
This is something I have had to learn: busyness can become so loud that it drowns out the still, gentle voice of God. Not because God stops speaking or because He isn’t there, but because we can become so consumed with everything around us that we don’t stop long enough to listen.
Sometimes God needs to slow us down to make space for Him to show us what we have been too busy to see. And that can be uncomfortable because stillness can bring us face-to-face with things we have spent years avoiding.
But perhaps this is why God tells us:
“Be still, and know that I am God.”
Psalm 46:10
Being still before God isn’t simply about doing nothing. It is about making room to listen, to reflect, to allow God to reveal what is happening within us, and to hear His voice.
I spent many years thinking that I needed to escape stillness because of how it made me feel. Now I see that the stillness was not something I needed to escape from. It’s a gift from God.
It was where God was patiently waiting for me to slow down enough to hear Him. And with that slowing down came the beginning of a desire for stillness within me—a desire to get closer to Him, our Father and Counsellor.
I take so much from Jesus’ time here on earth, and I am inspired by the amount of time He spent in God’s presence. He intentionally sought time alone with the Father, and I began to feel that same desire growing more and more within me.
Luke 5:16 — Jesus regularly withdrew to lonely places to pray.
Mark 1:35 — Jesus getting up early to spend time alone with the Father.
Over time, I was slowly guided into letting go of the things that distracted me from spending time with God. Slowly, I had to let go of the things that didn’t serve Him or His will. Gradually, I stopped pressing for my own way and began to follow in Jesus’ footsteps of obedience and grow my relationship with Him.
I couldn’t do this if I wasn’t hearing His voice. And the only way I could ever hear His voice was by making time to be still in the Lord’s presence, reading the Bible, praying, and intentionally seeking Him.
Reflection
So I wonder, what might God be trying to say to you in the stillness?
Is your life so full of noise, busyness and distraction that you have left little room to hear His voice?
What might happen if you intentionally slowed down—not simply to rest, but to sit in God’s presence, open His Word, pray and listen?
Perhaps the stillness you have been trying to escape is actually the very place where God is waiting to meet you.
1 Kings 19:11-12 (NLT) is just one great example of how God speaks:
“Go out and stand before me on the mountain,” the Lord told him.
And as Elijah stood there, the Lord passed by, and a mighty windstorm hit the mountain. It was such a terrible blast that the rocks were torn loose.
But the Lord was not in the wind.
After the wind there was an earthquake,
but the Lord was not in the earthquake.
And after the earthquake there was a fire,
but the Lord was not in the fire.
And after the fire there was the sound of a gentle whisper.”
… a gentle whisper that can only be heard in true stillness….
Elize About Faith 