Just Be
As the season of Advent comes to an end and the sun comes up on Christmas day, I can’t help but reflect on one recurring theme in my life. My family has a special Christmas tradition of lighting a candle in our Advent wreath each week and reading a devotion each night as a way for us to prepare to celebrate the birth of Christ. This year during Advent I have been keenly aware of the idea of simply being present with the people around us. This can be a powerful practice that while practically difficult has the ability to give us a glimpse into what heaven will be like.
I often practice just being. I limit the time I spend on my phone or put it away all together. I take off my watch, and I put away any other distractions. When I do this, I can really focus on the people that I am fortunate enough to be around. In college my core group of friends consisted of the members of the Loft team. We were a student leadership group that in addition to doing leadership development and team building for other students, we would heavily invest in each other’s lives so that we too could grow. One thing that we frequently did was go on overnight retreats. Sometimes we would just hang out, other times we would have activities planned; regardless of what we were doing, our focus was investing in each other and enjoying being together. We would set aside the distractions of school and life to spend time together. In the “just be” space that we would create, I experienced a special type of peace, a sense that all is right in the world because we were together. We would play games and laugh together; we told stories and shared the things that we were struggling through. In those moments I felt known and loved. The experiences helped me come to understand the type of Love that my heavenly father has for me and they helped me learn to “just be” in the presence of God and experience his peace washing over me.
It would be great to be able to set aside all stress and responsibility of life and just be present with those around us all of the time, but realistically that isn’t practical. The truth is that we have things that we need to do and those things cause stress and often require us to rush from thing to thing. This is just part of life. While responsibilities are unavoidable, I do feel that we can still be fully present in the moments that we are given. This takes a level of awareness on our part. For example, when I go into settings of worship, I make a conscience decision to focus only on the experience of worshipping. I do not let myself work on or think about my other responsibilities in that time. When I do this, the worship becomes more significant. Likewise, when I allow myself to focus on the next part of my day, the worship becomes shallow and I do not experience God in the same powerful way. At times I intentionally remove the looming distractions, being fully in on the people I am with. I really listen to the stories that they share as I first put away my phone and computer and anything else that I have been using that may distract me. I decide to just be with those people. When I do this, I experience them more fully and I know them deeper and in turn know God deeper because I believe that as his creation, we reflect him. I get much more out of life when I have the awareness to just be.
The practice of just being is something that has slipped from my life lately. It isn’t something that has been on my mind. I have tasted the fruit of simply being, yet I forget to pursue it. As I celebrate the birth of my Savior, my prayer is that I would be reminded daily to choose to just be in every moment of my life. Maybe you are like me and you need a reminder to just be, too. I want to encourage you to come up with a way to remind yourself to just be. This year I will keep my phone in another room as I exchange gifts so that every time that I feel the urge to check it, I will be reminded to just be and to enjoy the moment.
Merry Christmas!
