Walk With Him: Be Where Your Feet Are

Church talks often leave one with a longer “to do” or “to be” list and a sense of urgency to get it all done now. Lengthen your stride. Put your shoulder to the wheel. We need to do more. Get ready. Buckle up. Step up your efforts. Build more. Prepare more. Move fast. These aren’t bad messages, but they can create unrealistic expectations for us resulting in chronic fatigue and discouragement. It’s why a recent talk by Elder Kearon at BYU titled “Peace and Rest–Even Now” may become a watershed speech because his plea for us is to slow down, be still and feel peace, even now.

“Please, please slow down. Be still and wait for the Spirit of the Lord. Please slow down and hear His voice and know that He is God.” These words by Elder Kearon echo the voice in Proverbs, “Ponder the path of your feet; then all of your ways will be sure (Proverbs 4:26). Ponder. Be where your feet are. Be present. Then you’ll know who you are and where you are.

Slowing down isn’t easy. Many of us have only two speeds-fast and stop. Could one of the gifts of the new schedule change be that we slow down? With less time, we can focus on one or two questions without an outline to move through. Together we can practice pauses and pondering, with space for the Spirit to enter in.

“Please, please slow down. Be still and wait for the Spirit of the Lord. Please slow down and hear His voice and know that He is God.
From the earliest history of the Restoration comes a principle one of the early Saints recalled learning from the Prophet Joseph Smith.10 Truman G. Madsen later summarized this principle: “If a man has a bow and keeps it constantly strung tight, it will soon lose its spring. The bow must be unstrung.”11
Are you constantly strung tight? If so, you will soon lose your spring. You must be occasionally unstrung!
We need goals, we need plans. They keep us focused on things that really matter. They have a place. But is it right that they consume us and that we apply that kind of focus and pressure to every element of our lives?
Can we be at peace just being peaceful?” (Elder Kearon)
“If you must look back, do so forgivingly. If you must look forward, do so prayerfully. However, the wisest thing you can do is to be present in the present. Gratefully.” (Maya Angelou)

Listen to Elder Kearon’s BYU talk: https://speeches.byu.edu/talks/patrick-kearon/peace-and-rest-even-now/.