A Simple Truth That Reshapes The Way We Live in Quarantine
by Anna Jansma, Resonate Bellingham
Stillness. A concept that feels foreign in our society yet a silence our souls long and ache for daily. As humans we constantly fight this tension between wanting more down time and seemingly never having the capacity to cease our standards of productivity. This world celebrates our effort that leaves us exhausted and utterly burnt out. We find ourselves believing that the only plausible solution towards renewal is to binge out. We walk away from our 4-hour screen splurge seemingly more exhausted than when it began only to wake up to another week chock-full of productivity and producing.
Yet here we are in 2020, ironically forced to stop, slow down, and be still. How do we as believers and followers of Jesus orient our lives to display the Gospel through such a season of stillness? By learning how to power down, unplug, disconnect, and celebrate the fact that we are not a machine. By embodying the staggering belief that our identity is not within the things we produce. By remembering that we have been freed from Pharaoh’s enslavement to create more bricks with less straw (Exodus 5). By acknowledging that so much of who we are is found in Psalm 46:10, “be still and know that I am God.”
In Luke chapter 10, the dichotomy between our desire to live in busyness and the renewal of living in stillness is demonstrated between our sweet sisters Mary and Martha. Martha represents your typical modern-day American: hustling, stressing, and overworking herself into a busy lifestyle. Mary on the other hand “sat at the Lord’s feet and was listening to what He said” (Luke 10:39). Martha asks Jesus to have Mary kick it into high gear and help a sister out (Anna Jansma translation). Jesus tells her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and upset about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has made the right choice, and it will not be taken away from her,” (Luke 10:41-42). While busyness sets our mind, heart posture, and identity onto our behaviors, a still and quiet life with Jesus redirects our focus back to Him and His goodness. Our stillness with God in this season is the right choice. No matter how hard we fight to reconfigure and reorient our workdays or calendars, it will not be taken away from us. What a challenging, but fruitful, joy.
If you tend to find your worth in your work, you are likely a 3 on the Enneagram (me), or you simply have never put into practice the art of being “still,” you may find yourself confused on what this exactly means. Luckily good ol’ John Mark Comer comes in clutch with seven daily rhythms we can embody to help quiet our minds and lives during this time of solitude. For this blog’s sake, I’ve paraphrased my favorite top 5 below. You can find John Mark’s full discussion of these rhythms through the Brigetown podcast, “Exploring Our Rule of Life.”
5 Daily Rhythms for Quarantine
1.Start the day in quiet prayer and scripture reading before anything digital
I think we can all agree here that starting the day with the news, text messages, and to-do tasks are not the best way to start our day as disciples of Jesus. Instead, let’s embrace these slower mornings by walking directly to our Father. After all, He deserves our first and our best.
2. Create a gratitude ritual
Nothing elaborate here; just simply take a moment to reflect on what we are thankful for. My husband and I discuss our top three of the day while we walk or over dinner.
3.Exercise or go for a walk
There’s something significant both physically and psychologically about getting out of our minds and into our bodies.
4. Engage in one focal practice
A focal practice is something you love, something that draws you to the moment. This varies for each person, but some examples would be cooking, walking, art, chess, knitting, sewing, reading, etc.
5.Limit screen time, news intake & escapist behaviors
This is pretty self-explanatory. The every-hour, non-stop flood of negativity that has been in the news does not exactly lead us to a heart posture of joy and satisfaction. Binging out on your screen does not necessarily lead us to the feet of Jesus. Now, escapist behaviors are not limited to social media or TV. This includes sugar, alcohol, fatty foods; the things we go to for an immediate emotional hit. This is not saying we can’t watch Netflix or bake that Joanna Gaines cookie recipe. Limiting escapist behaviors is about asking ourselves “why am I doing this” and “how much am I doing it?” Stay informed & connected, but quit the need to compulsively unlock your phone folks.
To finish up, being still does not mean sitting in your closet and meditating to Enya albums playing on repeat. Stillness is a state of being, a heart posture, found through stopping and asking ourselves “where does my hope and identity lie?” The fact of the matter is, if we place our hope or identity in anything within the confines of this world, we’ll likely find ourselves stressed the heck out (John 4:13-14). I’m sure in this season, we have all been there. However, when we look towards the Gospel, we are reminded that we are found in Christ.
Because of Jesus’ death and resurrection, we are no longer seen as what we do or don’t do. We are His. Called, justified, and glorified (Romans 8:30). Therefore, it doesn’t matter how much of our checklist we accomplish, how often we use our time to crush our fitness goals, or how many new skills we have learned through our quarantine. What matters is that we are found in Jesus. Let’s be people who find joy in the slowness of our current world and embody the command to “be still and know that [He] is God.”
