Spilled Salt: Still

When I think of the word still, I think of that time between gusts of wind, you know when there’s this big gust, a pause, then another big gust. It’s that pause between gusts that give me a sense of calmness. It’s almost like nature takes a time out from its busyness.

Coming up this weekend, I am moving into the church with 17 youth and 4 other adult leaders, and we’re going to descend upon our city of Abbotsford, BC with works of service from Friday after school until late Saturday evening.

It’ll be non-stop serving.

Not exactly what I think of when I think of being still.

This weekend, we have called “STiLL” as a weird acronym for “Share the Love.” This acronym has another purpose other than being an acronym (if you can call it that). I desire to teach and to adopt a lifestyle of taking these pauses between gusts of busyness.

Sure, I have spent countless hours planning and prepping this weekend, just this morning the details have been finalized, and I only have to go shopping for the food, and yes, I will be working this entire weekend. But the weekend is not for me, it’s for the youth who are coming out – to take this pause, to enter into a STiLLness away from their busyness of school and social lives.

The last time we ran this STiLL weekend, in a reflection time, many of the youth on the team were speechless in one sense, almost in a sense of awe. Then in another sense they were completely amazed that they could actually hand a lunch or dinner to a homeless person. These youth learned much about themselves in their time of STiLLness and self-less giving.

I want to encourage you, no matter who you are or where you find yourself, to enter into this same STiLLness, where you stop doing things for yourself, and you focus on the needs of those around you – outside your normal circumstance. Perhaps you cannot devote an entire weekend – but taking out an hour to help out at a thrift store, your local food bank, pick up garbage in your neighbourhood can be extremely rewarding and helpful.

When you really look at the life of Christ, the story of how He came to be a human on this earth, to how he lived and who he hung out with, you find that he spent his time serving and giving and spending time with those who were sick, down-and-out, rough on their luck. Christ calls us to model His lifestyle.

I know we can never fully model His life – but an effort goes a long way.

So, in your life – I pray that you’ll find the courage to step out of your comfort zone, taking small steps at a time to tackle this quest to model the life of Christ.