As I walk around campus, there is a different look in the faces of those I meet than what I was seeing in August and the first weeks of September. The faces are a bit more tired, stressed, and overwhelmed. Maybe you are feeling it also, as we enter the final week before fall break. The point in the semester where some of our to-do lists might feel a bit behind. We are into the heart of our courses. Student organizations have moved from planning for the semester to instituting their programs. We have been getting to know and welcoming the new members of our community, from first-year students to new faculty, staff, and administrators, and integrating them into our life together. We have had very full lives and schedules as a campus community, and it seems everyone is looking to fall break where they can maybe catch their breath.
And, yes, to some extent, this will always be part of the rhythm of life. Moments that are extremely full and need moments of deep rest. And I pray for each of you that fall break will provide that time. I also pray that when we gather back together for the next stretch of our full lives together, we might all find time to breathe within the fullness.
This past weekend, students from the Christian Leadership and Formation Program had the opportunity to go on their fall semester retreat at the Dunes Learning Center. The retreat offers a place to be in a different space with each other, that we might, for a moment, switch up rhythms to reconnect to our relationships—relationship with God, with our friends, with ourselves, our work, our phones, our plans—to be a little more present. We do a lot of reflecting during our time together.
After one of our moments of time to be in solitude and reflect and rest in the presence of God, one student remarked how much having the time to do it reminds them how much they need it, and yet they struggle so hard to find time in their daily life. I do not think they are alone in that struggle. We know that rest is fuel for our body and our soul. Yet it is often the thing that we sacrifice.
One Friday night, the students were invited to reflect on the verse from Psalm 46:10, “Be still and know that I am God.” The psalms are part of the Hebrew Bible, and the word that is translated here as “still” in Hebrew is “raphah.” The fuller translation of the Hebrew word is to cease striving, to slacken, or to let go. I feel like that captures so much truth in the struggle to “be still.” So much of the world tells us to keep striving and to prove ourselves. We cling so tightly to what people think of us, to performing well, and to keeping it together that it can be really uncomfortable to “be still.” It can be uncomfortable to stop striving, to loosen up, to let go. After all, so much of our identity can be wrapped up in this kind of performance and success, and the other part of this invitation to be still is an invitation to know that God is God.
God is the God that is at work in your life. God is also the God that created you in the Image of God. God is the God that calls you beloved.
So often we think that leadership means that we are always on, that the best leaders are the ones with the fullest calendars that can win the “who’s busier” award. Yet, when we get wrapped up and cling so tightly to our identity being about proving and striving, we will often come to a place of complete exhaustion. Pastor Jim likes to point out that the day after God created humans, God had the day of rest. So the first thing that humans were invited into was rest, not doing.
As leaders, to lead well, we need to be rooted in who we are outside of the to-do list. With the students, we talked about what it looks like to find time during the week or day to find solitude and Be Still. When we actually take the time for that kind of rest, reflection, and refueling, we are more equipped for all the tasks that we think we cannot step away from.
So even during this final push to fall break, I encourage you to think about how you can let your soul rest in your belovedness each day, not waiting to claim that truth until break. How can you take a moment to breathe? Maybe it is with a walk to morning prayer? Maybe it is during that break in the day, hitting play on a guided meditation on Spotify? Maybe there is another way that you feel restored when you allow yourself the brief moments to Be Still, to let go, to stop striving. As we enter this final week before break, I offer this prayer from “In Thy Light, We See Light: The Valparaiso University Prayer Book”
God of peace: I thank and praise you for each moment of life that you grant. When my days become chaotic, I often feel far from you and suffocated by my distorted sense of perspective.
Lord, your word has the power to calm the raging waters. Trusting in that word, I pray that you would breathe into my weary and anxious bones these words of peace: “Be still and know that I am God.”
Help me to remember that no matter what stressful situations I may encounter — you are Lord and I am your beloved child. Transform each moment of stress into an opportunity for me to use the gifts that you have given, and to reflect the joy that comes through your resurrection. Amen.
– Deaconess Kristin Lewis
Program Director of Christian Leadership and Formation
Institute for Leadership and Service
The Institute for Leadership and Service staff takes turns with the Pastoral Staff to write bi-weekly reflections and devotions for the University community.
