About a month ago, I was diagnosed with mononucleosis. If you’ve ever had it, you know the exhaustion that pervades your days. Some days it’s hard to do anything but work and sleep. Daily naps are highly recommended. Not exactly the productivity that our culture requires—or even the active ministry that the church holds out as an example of godly living.
Therein lies the problem.
When I can’t bring myself to engage in extracurricular activities—when it’s even hard to keep my mind on prayer—I tend to feel vulnerable, useless, even slothful. The temptation is to fight it: to try exercising or forgo the naps or just do. And yet the only treatment (it’s a virus, so there is no cure) is to rest. Frequently.
For weeks.
Which creates an interesting spiritual effect. It strips away all the layers of my being—all the things from which I can derive my value—and leaves me with just me, and God. No holy feelings or inspired insights, just a naked soul looking at God, and God looking at the soul.
Maybe it’s the most basic connection we can have with the Divine. And maybe it’s the most dynamic too. In any event, it requires a sea change of thought—a repentance, if you will. “Be still and know that I am God” (Ps 46:10). At times like this, you realize how utterly countercultural “being still” is—and how rich a spiritual treasure. Perhaps it is then, in a way unlike any other, that God pours himself into the soul.
