Text Box:  I’m often overwhelmed by how difficult it is to be still. Stillness seems to somehow go against our nature. Society certainly seeks to reinforce the notion that movement leads to progress and progress is the key to our happiness and success. Somehow busyness has been equated with usefulness where as stillness has been equated with a lack of productivity or even slothfulness.   The busyness of everyday life has often taken precedence over family, over relationships, over our own mental and physical health and over our time with God. That’s not to say, that the things we use to fill our time - are in and of themselves bad or even optional. But somewhere along the line, it seems we’ve gone from a healthy appreciation of productivity to a pathological need for it.    I think its a brilliant deception on the part of Satan -  make us believe that if we just have more, or do more, or exercise more... we will one day achieve a sense of peace and joy.  In essence busyness simply blinds us to the contentment and blessings God has graciously given us to enjoy in the present. Busyness deafens us to the voice of God and makes us immune to the needs and to the blessings around us.  It robs us of what is most valuable— our time with God and our time with others.    Matt’s role or job description here in Guatemala is very clear—mine however would appear far less defined.  At various points and especially since returning from the states, I have found myself feeling useless and questioning my purpose here in Guatemala.  For the past week, I’ve struggled with what to write in this newsletter.  A verse kept coming to mind… Be still and know that I am God.  I quickly would dismiss it and then go back to figuring out what I was going to write.  Currently, I am doing a Beth Moore Bible study with a friend in the states.  One of the verses highlighted in the study this past week was … Psalm 46:10— be still and know that I am God. The verse goes on to further say “ I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.” Hmmm—could this verse be a coincidence or was God trying to tell me something?  As I am not one to believe that anything happens by accident, I opted to believe that God was trying to tell me something.  Be still and know that God is sovereign and in control.  In all of my preoccupation with being useful and wanting to have a purpose in the grand scheme of things, I had  busied myself with the mundane and had forgotten what is most important — God.  God has been trying to get my attention, and I’ve been so busy trying to be useful to him, that I’ve left Him out of the process.  God doesn’t need me to try and be useful, He simply asks that I willingly surrender myself to Him and let Him use me for His glory.    Oswald Chambers writes… if you want to be of use to God, maintain the proper relationship with Jesus Christ by staying focused on Him, and He will make use of you every minute you live— yet you will be unaware, on the conscious level of your life, that you are being used of him.  Our heavenly father knows our circumstances, and if we will stay focused on Him, instead of our circumstances, we will grow spiritually—just as the “lilies of the field.”    

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