Be Still and Know.....

Be Still and Know That I am God

This line always makes me smile. 

It is so simple and yet so powerful. 

My life sometimes seems so chaotic and hectic, like the eye of a tornado, watching everything around me spin in a weird sort of madness.  Even though I may not be directly involved, I still am drawn up into the whirlwind around me.  A powerful and helpful not tool but more like lesson I have learned is to relax.  To take a deep breath and realize it is just not so dam important.  It may be important in the day to day business of life but in the long run, not so much. The mountain in front of me is almost always a mole hill in my rearview mirror.  An old army saying: there is no blood on the battlefield, helps me remember if it didn’t kill me it’s not so bad.

            I went to a spiritual retreat in Louisiana one time.  It was an interesting experience, but the lesson I took away from it was that half way through the retreat, the leader of the retreat did an exercise where in he asked everyone to close their eyes and feel the serenity in the room.  Then he told everyone, to remember that feeling and when you get stressed during the day to remember back to that feeling of serenity and to let it engulf you.  Funny thing is, it worked.  Now I had only been sober a couple of years at the time, my life still a mess from my drinking days with my amends still looking at me in the horizon, so it was very comforting to feel at peace and ease.   

            As is the case in my sobriety, when I find something that works I keep with it.  If it’s not broken why fix it?  Through the course of the steps, once I had started to look at this higher power, God of my understanding thing, I found I wanted to learn more.  When I feel myself being irritable, restless or discontent, that alcoholic feeling, it is letting me know that something in my life is not right.  When I get that feeling, I need to look and see what is going on.  What facet of my life is out of whack?  Sometimes it is just the fact that my life is going smoothly, but since I was use to living in such chaos, that normal does not feel comfortable.  Little story: I called my sponsor one day, had about two yrs sobriety, and told him that I was having a normal nice day.  Nothing traumatic, nothing wonderful, just an ordinary good day, his reply was “Good, that is what you are suppose to have, now keep your finger out of the toilet and don’t stir up any shit”.  Sobriety is supposed to bring about that normal day type thing, where I quit shooting myself in the foot and get about the business of living.  My life gets better, my ability to live life and enjoy it gets better, and it is suppose to, it is a byproduct of being sober.

So how does this relate to “Be Still and Know That I am God” and how does that fit into my daily life? In the morning I take time to reflect on the coming day and in the evening I review my day.  In doing so, I am mentally and spiritually preparing myself for the day and seeing in the evening where, if at all, I have fallen short of my goals from the morning.   Still where does the “Be Still” part come to play?  Ok, so in the morning when I am having my coffee and morning cigarette, I try, not always successfully but more often now than in my early sobriety, to empty my mind, relax my thinking, remember what my purpose in Life is, and remember and establish a contact with this God of my understanding.  My God is a father, and I think he likes it when I check in with him and let him know how I am doing.  It is not like he doesn’t know; I just think like any father, he likes his kids to keep in contact.  Over the years, for this did not happen for me overnight, there has been an increasing flow of serenity.   The pool inside my soul no longer has white caps, no drowning waves, but has increasingly been smooth and un-rippled.  Oh occasionally, there is a storm front or the water gets to churning, but when that happens, no matter the time of day, I take shelter from the storm, talk to my Father, try to be still, and remember there is but one and that with His help I can make it through whatever faces me and to have trust in Him.

There is a great power in not running the show, or in being in charge.  A freedom to act and be of use knowing that as long as I am doing the right thing and have faith and trust, it will turn out the way it is suppose to.  I may not get the results that I want, but I get the right results according to what my God wants.  All I am required to do is the footwork; he is responsible for the result.  In other words: “The good I Do, I don’t; the Father Doest the work.”  During the day, I know when I am on track and doing the right thing, because my soul is at peace; and when my soul (or conscious, if you will) is in turmoil, it usually means I am doing what I should not, and should stop it. At night as I get ready to sleep and review my day, I put everything in front of Him, and those things that are still troublesome, I put on my mental bookshelf, and let Him deal with it during the course of the night. (after all he does work 24 hours a day).

Now this may seem rather simplistic, and it is and it works, which is why i do it.  But it falls in line with my thinking of “thorough the eyes of a child.”, but more on that later.