Even runners need to take time to rest

I am a runner.. I love to run and I'm not talking about the physical act of running. I'm talking about running into life! Once I know in my heart that something is for me I don't sit around thinking about it and talking about it, I RUN! I can honestly say that running is my default position in every situation.

My desire to run has led to my leading a very full and happy life with lots of adventure but it also allowed me to run away from the emptiness of not knowing myself. I don't think I actually know how to do anything except run. Ordinarily this would not be a problem because as I said I LOVE RUNNING! Except that in this season of life I haven't been called to run, I've been called to a stop.

I currently find myself in a place of rest, a place where I am to sit and learn to be still. Anyone who knows me knows that I am many things but still is not one of them. For the first time in my life I have a purpose but the path to that purpose is unclear, I can't see the path which means I can't run down it at full speed. I find this incredibly frustrating but I recognise that these moments are defining moments, it is here in this stillness that the foundations will be laid for the rest of my life and if I don't take time to find out who I am now then I will spend my life running into things that aren't important in a bid to fill the void created by not knowing myself. So right now I find myself navigating a season of stillness but how do I learn to be still when I am used to running at full speed? When I live in a culture that encourages people to run?

I think we are a society of runners. We spend our lives racing from here to there, frantically checking items off lists, we make ourselves busy because it's easier to run into all the stuff than it is to sit in the stillness. Because when you rest in the stillness you have no choice but to get to know yourself and God. I also think that most of us have been running so fast for so long that we have no idea who we are inside anymore.. and that makes us afraid.

I have discovered that in the stillness you question the life you find yourself leading and discover those things which truly nourish your soul. I wonder what would happen if each of us set aside a moment each week to just be still? Not to spend time with God or to write in your journal or do yoga or whatever else it is that you think peace looks like (those things are important too and we should totally keep doing them), what I'm talking about is taking a moment of pure stillness. A moment where you stop and do nothing. After the fear of actually getting to know ourselves has subsided and the awkwardness of the silence is gone, I wonder if we would hear the voice that we push aside during the day because we are just too busy. I wonder if we would get to know ourselves a little better and if we knew ourselves better would we still make the choices we make?

I pray that each of us takes time out to be still, to listen to the voice that is deep inside, if we are going to be a society of runners each of us needs to know ourselves enough to know that we are running in the right direction, that we are running towards the things that matter to each of us. I pray that as we run through this life, we run towards our God given destiny xo