I don’t want to think. I don’t want to reflect. I just want to do. “Be still and know that I am God” has got to be the toughest verse in the Bible for me right now. “Be active and talk about me,” is what I like to think the verse says. I think this difficulty comes from a few places.
One is that I don’t like taking a strong opinion on things. When I take a strong opinion on a thought or an action that comes from a thought, I’m opening up myself to the chance of being wrong, or worse, someone thinking that I’m wrong. Someone thinking that I’m wrong usually is followed by questions about why I think the way that I do, or even challenges to the thought itself. So yeah… easier not to think, easier just to act.
Another is that sometimes I don’t know how to think, like really think, critically think, analytically think because I think in motion. I’m always on the move and tend to take in information, think, and act all in the same breath. According to my extroverted nature (thanks Meyers Briggs), I have a tendency to talk-think-talk. I’ve seen this to be pretty true in my own life. True life from an extrovert herself: sometimes I don’t think about things until I start talking about them, and then the talking helps me think, and then I process and think at the same time, and then start telling you everything. So needless to say being still and simply knowing that He is God is tough for my extroverted, externally processing system most of the time.
Another thing I find tough is simply knowing what is true about God. The things that my parents told me to be true about God growing aren’t cutting it anymore; I’m having to discover that for myself. The hardest part for me now is getting past the language. I’ve pretty much perfected my Christianese at this point. You know, that language that Christians use when we don’t want to actually think about what we’re saying but want to sound like we know what we’re talking about. The language acts as a barrier, I can act and do and talk at the same time without actually thinking about what I’m saying. It’s sort of like wearing a mask and I’ve grown to be a professional mask-wearer: it looks put together and says the right things, but it’s shallow. A lot of this year for me is figuring out what it looks like to live without a mask. To think for myself. To be still and know.
And the fact that I don’t want to be still and write this blog post is exactly the reason that I should. I’ve found that a lot of being a Christian is about doing the things that I don’t want to do. So here I am, and here it is.
-Kenz