We realize we have become slaves to contemporary culture when staying still is duly considered as a waste of our “precious” time. Our minds have become wired to perpetually be stimulated by the duality of our work and entertainment. Which in principle would signify productivity and relaxation. The latter becomes the self-stipulated remedy or fairly earned reward from the former. A means of amusing ourselves. Without these external stimulants force-fed into our minds, we find ourselves in a strange place. A place that is often confined to merely be a temporary state-of-mind, that is to be broken free from. Like a junkie when he is sober. Then even this state of fleeting stillness in us is not fully isolated. It is plagued by a train-of-thoughts that are derived from the very evident duality of lives – productivity and relaxation. With a little honest retrospection we can simply state – we are nothing more than slaves of our mind. We have become slaves of manufactured pseudo-busyness or have pampered it with infinitely countless means of entertainment. Our brains with packed schedules therefore quarantine us from this state of stillness (quietness).

Stillness is practiced and preached by many Eastern religions, albeit with the use of different labels such as ‘meditation.’ And such disciplined isolation of the mind is practiced unto tranquility. If practices as such fueled entirely by a man’s resolve and will can help him achieve stillness, how much more of a power-packed affair is it for the Christian? The Christian practicing stillness isn’t unto mere emptying of the minds, but allowing the emptied mind to become the echo chamber of the Holy Spirit’s still small voice (1 Kings 19:12-13). The Christians’ stillness isn’t unto tranquility by means of closing the mind to the reality of the storm in a Freudian way, but knowing true and lasting peace through the One who calms such storms (Mark 4:39). I picture stillness of the mind as such: a blind man being led faithfully by his guide dog. The blind man who otherwise would be frantically striving to not step onto the busy road or take a tumble down a flight of stairs is now at ease with his guide dog leading him. Simply because he fully trusts and does not second guess his faithful guide’s motives. As Isaiah writes in Isaiah 30:15a: In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength. Stillness in prayer is maybe just folding and putting away our list of petitions into our pockets for a moment. Lost to the shifting shadows of the hour-hand and not meeting with God on a rigid schedule. Having a flexible framework in our pattern of prayer. And maybe it is that place of a hyper-sense of realization of God in our lives, where we just get to exist and just be in His presence. Where words may not necessarily do justice to explain it, but His presence at that very moment becomes the most real thing. The place of nakedness before God, like Adam and Eve pre-fall in Eden, where nothing is hidden before Him. It’s not easy for the mind to be emptied of itself or to be reprogrammed. Yet, this largely overlooked practice can easily become the most divinely-twined part of all our prayers.