"We've got to watch the river to check that it doesn't stop"

Do you remember the song from the film "Snow white and the seven dwarfs"? It goes something like this:  We're busy going nowhere, working the whole day through, trying to find lots of things not to do...we've got to watch the river, to check that it doesn't stop... and on the song goes. There is something very easy about being busy. If I am busy I do not have to meet myself, look at myself. I don't have to think because I am too busy. Not only am I too busy but I am so very busy going about God's work!

It is important to stop, to make space and find time to be still. In our busy world many people have discoverd the value of being still and being quiet. They have built meditation into their lives as a way of finding the quiet and stillness that every human needs to stay healthy. As people we need to just be quiet, be still. This is not news for Christians, God said thousands of years ago in the psalms "be still and know that I am God" (46.10). In being still Christians do not only meditate on ourselves in an inward looking self-centred way but we can find God there, as He always is, waiting for us to come to him, waiting.

When we take time to be quiet with God it is easier to hear what he is saying to us. We can meditate in silence or we can meditate on a verse or passage from the bible or we can meditate with worship music. Meditation with music is sometimes called soaking which is a great description really, we soak ourselves in the presence and worship of God.

To my mind, meditating in the presence of God, being open to Him and listening, has to be superior to meditating on ourselves or on emptyness. There are so many things that make us busy but are not really important and they crowd out the really important things like time to be still and soak in the presence of God. The bible tells us that when we come to Him we will find refreshment so why is it so difficult to come. There is so much in favour of it but it takes a real act of will to lay aside the things that demand our attention. Sometimes I need help to lay down the immediate in favour of the important and sometimes I just need a good "shove" to get on with it!