Be Still

He says, “Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.” Psalm 46:10

Even though this is the 5th Monday in January, it feels like the month just flew by. February is just around the corner and I for one can hardly believe it.

The world we live in is just plain busy. We simply have a ton of things that require our attention, each of which demands time and focus in order to do them well.

Last week, our Executive Director Bradley Harris called a meeting of the Toronto Housing and Homeless Supports (THHS) management team. It was our first meeting as a team in 2017, and we were getting together with the primary agenda being preparation for our upcoming accreditation.

It was raining that morning which, as it usually does, slowed traffic down significantly. So, many of us barely got there on time, and when we sat down together there was a real sense of us being somewhat frazzled by the hectic nature of trying to get there.

Bradley started us off with a very timely devotional thought about the need to ‘be still’.

He reminded us not only of the importance of giving attention to our work, family and any other obligations we might have, but also of the necessity to carve out space and time to stop everything we are doing. During that intentional time of not being ‘busy’, we’d pray and embrace:
the silence,
the peace,
the ‘stillness’
of the moment.

This reminder did in fact calm us as a team. We were silent, we prayed, and we listened for God’s voice before we got going on accreditation stuff. Only then could we leave the frustration of traffic and whatever else was on our minds behind and focus on the work at hand.

Our missional focus for January is ‘Excellence’.
It is one of our vision statement words at THHS as well as one of The Salvation Army’s 10 core values. There is much biblical precedence for the need for ‘being still’. Jesus took a ton of time out of His many demands and hectic schedule to go off on His own to pray. It seems clear He knew that excellence could only be achieved if He took the time to be still.

So for us, the challenge is just that.
Be still.
Listen.
Pray.

These are necessary in order to keep on striving to be The Hand of God in the Heart of the City.

Peace,
Dion.