To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast, click here
Each weekday in the month of August, we will pursue “prepositional truth” by zeroing in on a single Greek preposition in a single verse, noting the theological richness so often embedded in the humble words we so often overlook.
It’s hard to sit still.
It’s even harder to be still, from the inside out.
About a dozen years ago, University of Virginia professor of psychology Timothy Wilson directed a study in which men and women were encouraged to simply sit and let their minds wander. All they really had to do was nothing for about 15 minutes.
By and large, they couldn’t do it.
“We went into this thinking that mind-wandering wouldn’t be that hard,“ Wilson said, “[but] we kept finding that people didn’t like it much.”
In a matter of minutes, those in the study began to miss their cell phones. They wondered if they had received any emails. How many strangers had posted Likes on their most recent photos? Was there something they should be working on? It didn’t take long for them to flunk the stillness part of trying to be still. Both men and women searched for distractions.
Wilson and his team then asked themselves a disturbing question: Was it possible that people were so uncomfortable with stillness that they would prefer a negative stimulation instead?
So they offered one. Rather than trying to sit quietly, people could choose to shock themselves.
Each was given a device that would provide a modest electrical shock from a nine-volt battery. All they had to do was press a button. Wilson thought it was a crazy idea. “I mean, no one was going to shock themselves by choice.”
That’s when they made a shocking discovery. About a quarter of the women in the study and a whopping two-thirds of the men actually chose to press the button instead of trying to remain still. One man actually shocked himself 190 times over a span of 15 minutes.
Wilson concluded that many people strongly prefer to do anything else – even if it hurts – instead of trying to do nothing.
This is a concern, especially because of Psalm 46:10: “Be still and know that I am God.” If we can’t learn how to be still, we will seriously miss out on knowing that God is God.
Irritability, anger, busyness, and loneliness: Those are some of the signs that we desperately need to experience intentional down-time, allowing our minds simply to reflect on the truth that God is God, and we are not.
Author and pastor John Ortberg suggests that we allow Psalm 46:10 to become the focus of a stillness exercise. We quietly ponder each word. Then we slowly begin to subtract words:
Be still and know that I am God.
Be still and know that I am.
Be still and know.
Be still.
Be.
What are we likely to discover from such an experience?
We may be shocked to learn that God has been nearby all the time, and we were too distracted to notice.
It’s a funny bumper sticker, but it should also make us cringe: Jesus is Coming Soon. Look Busy.
The Son of God’s actual interest in our current behavior is more faithfully revealed in texts like Matthew 11:28-30, which begins “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” Eugene Peterson brilliantly paraphrases Jesus’ words in The Message:
“Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.”
Is there a preposition in there that’s worth a second look?
Check out the beginning of that text: “Come to (PROS) me…” It’s hard to imagine getting much mileage out of a humble word like “to.” But PROS is intriguing. It adds to the “with me” emphasis of the New Testament, but with a strong personal flavor.
We’ve already encountered META and SUN. Both prepositions remind us God has promised to be with us, regardless of circumstances, and that we are called to be with each other.
The apostle John didn’t use either of those words, however, in one of the Bible’s most important “with” texts.
He launches his Gospel with this sentence: “In the beginning was the Word [that is, Jesus], and the word was with (PROS) God, and the Word was God.”
META and SUN have the sense of “being alongside.” Imagine a commanding officer shouting to his troops, “Are you with me?” If he had used either of those two words, a few weary soldiers might have muttered, “Uh, yes sir, it’s pretty clear that we’re all stuck here in the same muddy trench.”
But if he had shouted, “Are you with me?” and used the word PROS, he would have been asking, “Will you join me in storming that hill? Are you with me – body, mind, and spirit – even when the bullets begin to fly?” To which loyal troops could only reply, “Wherever you go, we will follow!”
John 1:1 thus means, “At the beginning of everything, there was Jesus the Son and God the Father, and the two of them were entirely united in spirit, because Father and Son are both fully divine.”
The word PROS is the root of the Greek word prosopon, which means “face.” It later came to denote each of the three persons of the Trinity.
So, what does all this have to do with being still and knowing that God is God?
The Matthew 11 text is our assurance that the One we meet during intentional times of stillness is actually a real person, not an abstract Religious Principle.
Jesus says, “Come to me. Face to face. As our hearts beat together, you will experience rest as you have never known it before.”
And it’s a good bet we’ll soon hear Jesus saying something else:
“Are you with me?”