Be still

"Be still and know that I am God." Psalm 46:10

"Thou my best thought by day or by night. Waking or sleeping Thy presence my light."

Back in Romania we have a Christian radio station (something like UCB- United Christian Broadcast). It's called "Vocea Evangheliei-The Voice of the Gospel". For a while, when I was about 23-24 they keep broadcasting a sort of an encouragement for people to seek God daily. It was called "7 minutes a day with God". Now I am not very sure what made them choose the number 7 and not 10, perhaps because 7 is considered a holy number, the number of God. Anyway, as I was a fairly new Christian very much set in my ways, I thought it terrible to only give God 7 minutes out 1440 minutes of a day. I was judgemental without considering what 7 minutes mean for a full-time working mother with four children like my mum for instance. She took the seven minutes seriously and I could either find her on her knees before going to work in the morning or I would discover her Bible and her devotional left on her bed after she left for work. It's 7 minutes enough or do I need to spend an hour every day? How much time do I give to a timeless God who lives in me anyway?

I want Him to know He is my absolute number 1, but how much time do I give Him in order to make Him understand that? I am one of those people who can't make it through a day of work if I don't spend some time with Him in the morning. That's my personality. I wish I could be one of those lovely, quiet, pleasant girls who seem to spread peace whenever they pass you by, but I'm not. I am very passionate and sometimes loud and so I have to make a conscious effort to be quiet and lovely and peaceful. And everytime I manage to go through a day being that way, I know it was God helping me. So I wake up every morning, sometimes at ridiculously unearthly hours, because I am weak and I need help. But is that time in the morning enough? I mean I am genuinely seeking Him for very selfish reasons "Adonai, I need wisdom and understanding and peace and determination to make it through today. I need help."
This is what's on my heart lately. And I discover more and more that even though setting aside a designated time to spend with Him is a very good thing that shows Him my determination and desire to follow Him, it's about more than that. I kept telling my Daniel all week "There's something more here which escapes me. I need to understand this." Eventually I got it. It's about living with the consciousness of Him all through the day. I love the way they translated Isaiah 26:3, in the New Living Translation of the Bible: "You will keep in perfect peace all who trust in you, all whose thoughts are fixed on you!" I found this to be true this week.

But how do I keep God in my thoughts throughout the day, in a 9-5 job where my phone is ringing, I have to focus on the work at hand and give my company 100%? Now that is the question! I decided to be practical about it. In my company you have to move from your computer every hour for a couple of minutes in order to rest your eyes (sounds good in theory practically its a bit more difficult:-)), so I decided to use that time to "remember God". I might go to get some water from the water machine and think "Thank you for helping me so far today." Or move to the printer and think "I love you, Adonai sheli (my Lord)". I was determined to do it every hour, I managed to do it about 2-3 times a day, but at those times I felt Him so close, far closer than I do sometimes when I'm sitting at my lovely purple desk. So I will carry on. I can't say I don't find it frustrating when I have to return to my work, but He knows that already, just as I know I need to be still inside and know He IS. He is there, He is my God, He is for me, He is there to help.

All I heard all week in my heart was "Be still". Friday morning, as I was entering the parking lot at work and saw the building, I took a deep breath in, as you do before you jump in the waves. But then I started to laugh so hard when I passed a parking lot of someone from my work called B. STILL (God does have a sense of humour). So I guess I will carry on and do what I've done so far. Just because I am not 100% successful all the time doesn't mean I should stop, because I realised God loves my 7 seconds every few hours just as much as He loves me spending a whole day with Him. For a timeless God what matters the most is that you choose to remember Him in a world which tells you all the time He does not exist.

One of the writers that influenced me most in my life is Etty Hillesum. Perhaps because I identify so much with her... Etty was just as determined to find God everywhere as I am, and I love her so much because her life proves to me that if you seek Him you find Him, just as He said. Etty started out with so many emotional problems. She fought depression and sadness all the time, but because she sought God, eventually when she ended up in a concentration camp, she would enter one of the barracks smiling and bringing comfort to others who were completely lost. Etty started looking for God just like us, with little steps, but what amazes me about her, is that she never attended a church or a synagogue and no one taught her how to seek God, and still this is how she describes it: "A quiet half an hour within yourself...but it's not that simple that sort of "quiet hour". It has to be learned. A lot of unimportant inner litter and bits and pieces have to be swept out first." From the beginning she acknowledged it was not simple, but she didn't stop. She carried on as on a mission. She told God her heart is His home and she will clean it up for Him and decorate her soul so that He would feel at home:

"The jasmine behind my house has been completely ruined by the rains and storms of the last few days; it's white blossoms are floating about in muddy black pools on the low garage roof. But somewhere inside me the jasmine continues to blossom undisturbed, just as profusely and delicately as it ever did. And it spreads its scent round the House in which you dwell, O God. You can see I look after You, I bring you not only my tears and my foreboding on this stormy, grey Sunday morning, I even bring you scented jasmine. And I shall bring You all the flowers I shall meet on my way, and truly there are many of those. I shall try to make You at home always. Even if I should be locked up in a narrow cell and a cloud should drift past my small barred window, then I shall bring you that cloud, O God, while there is still strength in me to do so. I cannot promise You anything for tomorrow, but my intentions are good, You can see."

Eventually, Etty reached that place where her surroundings and circumstances could not stop her dialogue and inner life with God: "My life has become an uninterrupted dialogue with You, O God, one great dialogue. Sometimes when I stand in some corner of the camp, my feet planted on Your earth, my eyes raised towards Your heaven, tears sometimes run down my face, tears of deep emotion and gratitude." She wrote these words whilst in Westerbrook camp, amongst suffering and despair. But she choose to be there with her people rather than run and hide. "And I want to be there right in the thick of what people call horror and still be able to say: life is beautiful. Yes, I lie here in a corner, parched and dizzy and feverish and unable to do a thing. Yet I am also with the jasmine and the piece of sky beyond my window."
She wanted to be God's witness "...there must be someone to live through it all and bear witness to the fact that God lived, even in these times." And she did bear witness until the end. The last thing Etty wrote was a note to a friend which she threw out through a crack in the boarded-up train. This was later found by farmers and posted to her friend: "Christine, opening the Bible at random, I find this "The Lord is my high tower..."

Etty started by simply seeking. She was intentional about it, but she didn't turn it into some routine she would feel guilty for not keeping at all times. She just had a relationship and that relationship carried her through the hell around her. I don't have to survive a concentration camp, but I have to go through the distractions of everyday life. To keep a marriage happy you have to become creative in the ways you live your love for your spouse. I find it easy to think about my relationship with God that way. Just as my Daniel, God also has to feel my love for Him through many little things I invent every day, even if that little thing is just a few seconds of my attention in a busy day. What matters is that for those few seconds, I've stopped it all to tell Him that I love Him.

Emanuela