The power of stillness

When I was in seventh grade, stillness was not a quality that really resonated with me. When I would rustle around at the movies or in church, I might hear my parents whisper, “Mark, sit still!” Then I would do so for as long as I could – which usually wasn’t very long – before entirely forgetting about what they’d said.

And when I began feeling flu-like symptoms later that year, I felt anything but still and calm. My parents lovingly cared for me, and I knew from experience that I could rely on God for comfort and healing. But for a couple of days my prayers felt scattered.

A Christian Science practitioner who was praying with me mentioned how Jesus had prayed, “Peace, be still,” when he and his disciples were on a boat in the middle of a storm (Mark 4:39). When I’d heard this story before in Christian Science Sunday School, I’d assumed that he was simply telling the stormy sea, “Sit still!”

This time, I saw it differently: Jesus wasn’t battling the sea, trying to get it to become still. And he wasn’t just willing himself to feel calm somehow, despite danger. It seemed to me that he was affirming stillness as a powerful, steadying quality of God – one that we all have within us.

Monitor founder Mary Baker Eddy refers to the concept of “stationary” stillness in her writings: “The best spiritual type of Christly method for uplifting human thought and imparting divine Truth, is stationary power, stillness, and strength; and when this spiritual ideal is made our own, it becomes the model for human action” (“Retrospection and Introspection,” p. 93).

I chose to make “stationary power, stillness, and strength,” upheld by God’s allness, my own model for thought and action. Christian Science teaches that God’s nature is perfect and good, and that as His creation – the offspring of divine Spirit – our true nature reflects God’s: entirely spiritual, good, whole. We’re all inherently able to become quiet inside so as to more clearly discern this important truth, the spiritual reality of all existence. To do so is solid prayer.

Such stillness has nothing to do with passivity or inactivity. Prayerful stillness isn’t sleepy or dull; it is an active, steady awareness of God’s presence and goodness.

This take on stillness inspired me, and I discovered for myself the power of divine stillness. Within an hour or two, all the symptoms went away and I felt completely like myself again, happy and healthy.

The effects of this healing didn’t stop there for me. From that point on, I experienced more frequently that it’s possible – and so constructive – to cultivate “stationary power, stillness, and strength” at any point during a day – whether taking a test in school, competing in sports, or doing just about anything.

Jesus is a great model for this. For instance, the Bible records a day when, as he was leaving a city, he heard the repeated call of a blind man sitting by the highway, begging.

“Jesus, thou son of David, have mercy on me,” cried the man. “And Jesus stood still, and commanded him to be called,” relates the Bible (see Mark 10:46-52). The man’s sight was restored right there on the road.

We can only imagine what Jesus was doing when he “stood still” that day, but it seems logical to conclude that Jesus’ stillness was a time of prayerful listening to God.

There is an authoritative stillness to God’s perfect nature. God is unchanging and always present, and doesn’t need to contend with outside forces, fears, or influences. In fact, God, being entirely good, could never create or know any other power, because God – whom the Bible calls Love – is the only true power and presence.

Even when we feel so agitated inside that we’re almost unable to think, we can open our hearts to the divine stillness that uplifts thought and imparts divine Truth. As the Bible puts it, “In the multitude of my thoughts within me thy comforts delight my soul” (Psalms 94:19). In humble, prayerful stillness, we sense God’s delightful goodness and we naturally identify with it, since as God’s children we are made to show forth what God is all about.

And then we experience more tangibly the promise of this beautiful assurance: “Fear ye not, stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord” (Exodus 14:13).