“Be Still and Know That I Am God”

I am grateful to be here with this community of disciple-scholars. Being a fellow citizen with you in the kingdom of God is a joy for me.

When I was in graduate school, I took a course on philosophy and aesthetics. In the course, we studied the work of anthropologist Ellen Dissanayake and her definition of art as “making special.”¹

The concept of art as “making special” broadens the definition of art beyond traditional notions of beauty and skill. This frames art as a fundamental human behavior that elevates ordinary objects, activities, and ideas to a realm of special significance by adding value, meaning, or beauty. This definition of art emphasizes the behavior or activity used to create an object with extra care or meaning, rather than the object itself, thereby separating art from commerce, commodities, and ownership.² By this definition, art is everywhere.

There are many ways we can choose to make both tangible and intangible things special in our lives, but today I want to focus on how we can be artful in our living by making our time special. Time is a foundational element in exercising our agency to pursue that which is good.

Slowing

Norman Rockwell’s painting Lift Up Thine Eyes is just as reflective of our time as it is of 1957, when it was originally painted. It is a great depiction of what American physician Larry Dossey calls “time sickness,”³ which describes the compulsive belief that “time is getting away, that there isn’t enough of it, and that you must pedal faster and faster to keep up.”⁴ We are enslaved by speed and yet experience time-poverty.

American author and pastor John Ortberg is among those credited with coining the term slowing. Ortberg defined slowing as “cultivating patience by deliberately choosing to place ourselves in positions where we simply have to wait.”⁵ Another way of defining this term could be “making our time special.”

Ortberg and Christian author John Mark Comer both discuss the concept of slowing in their work. As Comer stated in his book The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry, “The basic idea behind the practice of slowing is this: slow down your body, slow down your life.”⁶

Slowing down our bodies gives us time to catch our breath. As a movement practitioner, I wonder, If slowing down matters so much to our bodies, what happens to us spiritually when we do?

Here is what slowing sometimes looks like for me:

• Arriving on campus early to enjoy some uninterrupted quiet time
• Reading from a physical book and not from a device
• Walking to my destination without headphones in

When I practice slowing, I am using my time in ways that might be deemed unproductive. The world would call this mindfulness. But we can make mindfulness special when we artfully use slowing to align our lives with God’s will.

On this campus, I often see examples of actions that combine this temporal notion of slowing with deliberate discipleship:

• Starting class with devotionals and prayer
• Coming together as a campus each week for devotionals
• Going on group temple trips
• Fasting for class members who need extra support

Slowing doesn’t mean giving up on worthy goals and ideals. It means widening your view and pausing long enough to notice what’s already there. Instead of pushing and working harder, slowing is about calming our bodies and minds and looking up enough to trust the direction we have been given. Just as wet sand reflects the sky in the calm between tides, our days can also hold quiet moments that reflect heaven if met with stillness.

Comer further highlights how constant haste is a form of violence against our inner selves, drawing from the idea of eliminating hurry from our lives to find healing and union with God. In his book, he tells a story.

The story goes like this: It’s the height of British colonialism. An English traveler lands in Africa, intent on a rapid journey into the jungle. He charters some local porters to carry his supplies. After an exhausting day of travel, all on foot, and a fitful night’s sleep, he gets up to continue the journey. But the porters refuse. Exasperated, he begins to cajole, bribe, plead, but nothing works. They will not move an inch. Naturally, he askswhy.

Answer? They are waiting “for their souls to catch up with theirbodies.”⁷

As Latter-day Saints, we are a busy and industrious people. But Comer clarifies that “there is a healthy kind of busyness where your life is full with things that matter, not wasted on empty leisure or trivial pursuits. By that definition Jesus himself was busy.”⁸ Many of the miracles Christ performed happened when He was busy or on His way to do something else but took the time to stop and minister to those who needed Him. Christ’s apostles documented many instances of the Savior practicing slowing during His mortal life.

For example, the book of Mark says that “in the morning, rising up a great while before day, [Christ] went out, and departed into a solitary place, and there prayed.”⁹

Christ even taught His disciples to practice slowing. In the same book of scripture, we read, “And he said unto them, Come ye yourselves apart into a desert place, and rest a while: for there were many coming and going, and they had no leisure so much as to eat.”¹⁰

I am positive you as college students relate to the disciples in this verse, who were so busy they didn’t even have time to eat and who needed to find a solitary place to rest! The Joseph Smith Translation teaches us that “a desert place” means a “solitary” place.¹¹ Christ can make our “desert like the garden of the Lord,” but we need to seek out solitary times and spaces to provide an opportunity for this to happen.¹²

As members of the Church, we practice our religion in many solitary places. The temple is a safe port in a storm and provides moments of quiet stillness while we receive instruction. Though we sit in a congregation, our sacrament meetings can be solitary places of reflection. Sabbath-day observance and morning scripture study can be desert places that are vital to our spiritual well-being. In addition to these examples, there are countless other times and spaces that we can choose to make special.

Why are solitary places important to disciples of Christ?

Author John O’Donohue argues that it doesn’t take much to develop our own spiritual individuality. He says:

One of the things that is absolutely essential is silence, the other is solitude.

Solitude is one of the most precious things in the human spirit. . . . It means that we cannot continue to seek outside ourselves for the things we need from within. The blessings for which we hunger are not to be found in other places orpeople.¹³

Slowing helps us to uncover who we really are under all the worldly influences that sometimes permeate our minds and hearts and to focus on our Savior Jesus Christ, who is “mighty to save.”¹⁴

The scriptures direct us to practice slowing. The prophet Isaiah wrote, “In returning and rest shall ye be saved; in quietness and in confidence shall be your strength.”¹⁵ Slowing is a way to fulfill the scriptural directive to “study to be quiet.”¹⁶

Slowing enriches our studies. If “attention is the beginning of devotion,”¹⁷ as Mary Oliver stated, where we spend our time shows us what we worship.

In a 2005 commencement address at Kenyon College, Professor David Foster Wallace said:

This, I submit, is the freedom of a real education, of learning how to be well-adjusted. You get to consciously decide what has meaning and whatdoesn’t.. . .

There is no such thing as not worshipping.

Everybody worships.

The only choice we get is what to worship.¹⁸

What we worship is revealed by how we spend our time and devotion. When do we take the time to follow the scriptural admonition to “be still, and know that I am God”?¹⁹

[An image depicting Christ with the man at Bethesda (see John 5) was shown.] This image encapsulates what slowing can feel like for a disciple of Jesus Christ. Slowing allows us to spend one-on-one, unhurried, face-to-face, quality time with the Savior of the world. One of the places we often have this kind of quality time with Christ is in the temple, but we don’t have to wait to be in the temple to have this experience. Christ will meet us in the messy middle of daily life. Slowing can help us find this feeling more frequently even as we are busy doing many good things.

I am not very good at practicing slowing all the time. However, this low-effort practice has had a disproportionately positive impact on my life in helping me focus on the things that matter most. As I have imperfectly attempted to practice slowing, I’ve noticed an iterative pattern for spiritual development.

Intentional Time with God

First, slowing creates interior space that allows us to act deliberately instead of reactively.

Slowing doesn’t remove complexity from life, but it gives us clarity about what is deserving of our energy. Slowing is a way that we “may attend upon the Lord without distraction.”²⁰ For God to change our lives, we have to change our availability to God. “God is in relentless pursuit” of us.²¹ Slowing declares our pursuit of Him.

Additionally, it can strengthen our relationships by helping us respond more calmly and purposefully in our interactions with others. In short, slowing helps us keep the two great commandments: to love God and to love our neighbors.

To strengthen our relationship with God, we need some meaningful time alone with Him. For a disciple of Christ, one of the best ways to seek a relationship with Him is to pray. Elder Bruce R. McConkie encouraged us to learn how to pray “boldly and efficaciously, not in word only but in spirit and in power, so that we may pull down upon ourselves . . . the very powers of heaven.”²²

But prayer is not enough on its own. The second part of that equation as taught by President Russell M. Nelson is that “listening is an essential part of prayer. Answers from the Lord come ever so quietly. Hence He has counseled us to ‘be still and know that I am God.’”²³

It is one of the great truths of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ that we can each receive revelation directly from God. President Nelson promised us that “as [we] increase [our] capacity to receive revelation, the Lord will bless [us] with increased direction for [our lives] and with boundless gifts of the Spirit.”²⁴

I have noticed a connection between making myself more available to the Lord and having greater access to the Spirit. As I have tried to listen more deeply after prayer, I have found that personal revelation is not as infrequent as I once thought. Spiritual discernment is necessary in our noisy and busy world. Slowing can help us find revelation to be a natural and commonplace, though miraculous, spiritual gift if we seek it.²⁵

Additionally, the more we follow the Spirit, the more we know that we are acting under the guidance and direction of the Spirit in the very moment we are doing it. This boosts our confidence that God is with us.

My husband, Cory, and I serve as ordinance workers in the temple. Before our shift I often find myself sitting in front of a painting of a distraught Mary and Martha being comforted by a weeping Jesus.

In the painting, the women have brought their troubles to Christ and are having a moment of undisturbed connection with their Savior. They are allowing Him to minister to them, and He is bringing them comfort and lifting their burdens.

One day I found myself craving this level of individual connection with the Savior. A thought came clearly to my mind: “I show up every morning at our appointed time for you to receive this kind of ministering. Do you?”

This question changed how I thought about my mornings with the Lord. I thought back to my recent morning scripture study, which involved a rushed listening of the audio version of the Book of Mormon at two-times speed in my car on my way to work. Although I still considered listening to the scriptures a good practice, it didn’t provide me with the depth of experience that I was craving. I was seeking rest, healing, guidance, and assurance, but I was barely giving God enough time in my life to allow for that kind of experience.

The Lord has promised us that if we draw near unto Him, He will draw near unto us.²⁶ Slowing is a way to make our time with God special and give Him time to succor us with our many needs. He can give us relief, comfort, forgiveness, understanding, and love at all times, but I recognize these blessings best when I am intentionally seeking them from the Savior. President Nelson said, “There is no limit to the Savior’s capacity to help you.”²⁷ He will lead us beside the still waters and restore our souls²⁸ as the King of Kings and the Prince of Peace.

Catalyst for Change

Second, slowing is a catalyst for change and can consecrate our efforts to become disciples of Christ.

As we open ourselves to receive direction from the Spirit, the Lord does not permit us to stay where we are. He requires us to act and to change. C. S. Lewis reminded us that the skills needed to be disciples of Christ are not acquired from afar but through embodied faith in action:

If you want to get warm you must stand near the fire: if you want to be wet you must get into the water. If you want joy, power, peace, eternal life, you must get close to, or even into, the thing that hasthem.²⁹

The concept of slowing is simple, but we must do more than wait “for [our] souls to catch up with [our] bodies.” Slowing fosters the ability to be agents unto ourselves³⁰ as we practice following in the Savior’s footsteps, instilling godly confidence and spiritual self-reliance.

“To consecrate is to set apart or dedicate something as sacred, devoted to holy purposes.”³¹ As we consecrate our time to the Lord out of our love for Him, it becomes not just special but holy.³² And while we can consecrate our time, talents, and means to the Lord, the “ultimate consecration is the yielding up of [ourselves] to God.”³³

Elder D. Todd Christofferson said:

Consecration therefore means repentance. Stubbornness, rebellion, and rationalization must be abandoned and replaced with submission, a desire for correction, and acceptance of all that the Lord may require.³⁴

How do we do that? President Dieter F. Uchtdorf taught, “With patience and persistence, even the smallest act of discipleship or the tiniest ember of belief can become a blazing bonfire of a consecrated life.”³⁵

The accumulation of the small choices we make each day is the process through which we come to be consecrated and know our Father in Heaven and Jesus Christ.³⁶ Through our small daily acts we can develop spiritual self-reliance by adding oil to our lamps drop by drop, that we “may be ready at the coming of the Bridegroom.”³⁷

I recently visited my optometrist for an annual eye exam. My exam took longer than usual, and afterward he told me that I wasn’t seeing very well out of my right eye. At first, I was bewildered and frustrated. I thought, “These are my eyes! How does he know how I’m seeing?” You would think that I would not need someone else to tell me how I was seeing things out of my own eyes!

But once he informed me of this, the recent headaches and eye strain I had been experiencing came to mind. I could tell that he was right. It had happened so gradually that I hadn’t noticed I wasn’t seeing optimally. My doctor had helped me catch this early, so the fix was fairly easy, and my vision improved in the course of a few weeks. Some light intervention and a new prescription later, and I can see all of you again.

Similarly, as we move through life, the effects of sin and living in a fallen world creep in gradually. Before we realize what has happened, we are working from a disadvantage that we can’t recognize without some self-examination or the intervention of the Spirit, Church leaders, or loving friends and family. The sooner we are made aware that we are wandering from the covenant path, the easier it is to be restored to the path with minimal effort on our part and a lot of grace and mercy through the power and Atonement of Jesus Christ.

Sometimes the prophets teach us ways we could better align ourselves with the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. And sometimes we wish to say, “It’s my life! You don’t know what I’m dealing with. You don’t need to tell me how to live.”

But even when we feel the Lord is teaching us things that are hard to understand, President Dallin H. Oaks recently taught us that the way to overcome doubt is to draw closer to the Savior and increase our humility.³⁸ Our prophet also taught us that when the Savior forgives us, He “does more than cleanse [us] from sin. He also gives [us] new strength.”³⁹

When our spiritual vision is fuzzy or unclear, the Lord encourages us to experiment on the word⁴⁰ and “prove [Him] now herewith.”⁴¹ The Lord is not afraid of our inquiry. He welcomes it. When doubts arise, we can ask the Lord in faith to help us make sense of our confusion. But the level of our discernment often corresponds to the depth of our inquiry. We can use slowing as a method to learn understanding, for “by the power of the Holy Ghost [we] may know the truth of all things.”⁴²

I have learned that my life is always better when I heed the counsel of the Lord’s prophets and apostles, even as I seek to gain greater understanding. As we repent, we find that deep and lasting change takes holy, consecrated, and sustained effort as we become new creatures through the Atonement of Jesus Christ.⁴³

Through the Savior, our efforts are sanctified. It is by giving our whole hearts to the Master and keeping His commandments that we come to know Him. And “in time, through the power of the Atonement, our hearts are changed, and we can become like Him.”⁴⁴

President Nelson taught us:

When Jesus asks you and me to ‘repent,’ He is inviting us to change our mind, our knowledge, our spirit—even the way we breathe. He is asking us to change the way we love, think, serve, spend our time, . . . and even care for ourbodies.⁴⁵

Slowing can be one of the ways we care for our bodies and spirits.

“Let God Prevail”

Finally, slowing lets God prevail as we become members of the house of Israel.

As President Nelson taught, “The very name of Israel refers to a person who is willing to let God prevail in his or her life.” President Nelson went on to say, “We can choose to be of Israel, or not. We can choose to let God prevail in our lives, or not. We can choose to let God be the most powerful influence in our lives, or not.”⁴⁶ Slowing is a way to choose God.

The word willing is crucial to this interpretation of Israel. We all have our agency. As God prevails in our lives, we begin to understand that He loves us more than we can comprehend. You will find that He knows you well, and He will demonstrate to you “that He yearns to help each of us reach our highest potential.”⁴⁷

In the discipline of dance, there are tensions between appearance-based training and sensation-based inquiry. Although I teach in a discipline that is highly focused on classical aesthetics, I also strive to ensure that dancers are training to be authentic artists, not just individuals creating visually appealing images.

[A photograph of a decorated tile was shown.] I was teaching in a ballet school in Pennsylvania when I came across this tile made by one of the students. It says, “To be and not to seem,” which is similar to the Latin phrase Esse quam videri. “To be rather than to seem” encourages authenticity and truth over superficial appearances, reminding individuals to focus on their qualities and actions rather than creating false impressions. If something is true, it consistently holds up under scrutiny from all sides.

Slowing can help us become truly converted to the gospel of Jesus Christ in every facet of our lives. It enables us to be true believers as covenant-keeping disciples of Christ, rather than merely maintain an outward appearance of membership in the Church.

Combining the secular and spiritual in our education is one way to be and not to seem. We cannot be fully integrated as wholehearted people without the ability to combine temporal and spiritual truths as disciples of Christ. Slowing can minister to our education, allowing us time to integrate gospel methodology with our secular learning.

I know of no better practical and accessible way to let God prevail in our lives than through intentionally seeking Him by slowing the pace of our days. I can think of no greater principle we need as disciples of Christ than that of removing distraction from our lives to seek greater connection with our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

In doing so we are not simply practicing slowing, but we are practicing reverence. Reverence is a feeling of love and respect for all that is sacred.

[It] leads to a quiet transformation in life. The Lord will pour out His Spirit more abundantly on those who are reverent. They are less troubled and confused. They are able to receive revelation to help them solve personal and family problems.⁴⁸

I invite us all to find small and simple ways to seek the Lord more regularly and declare our devotion to Him through our words and actions. When we intentionally use our agency to seek and follow Christ, we can find greater guidance, rest, and fulfillment than is possible to find anywhere else.

I bear my witness that life is better with Christ. As I have tried to make my time special and holy by putting the Lord first, I have seen miracles with greater frequency. I know life can be difficult, but it is easier with Christ. He knows and loves you more than you can understand. He will nurture and heal you. I testify that He lives and that He is willing and anxious to help us. I add my gratitude to the final words of “The Living Christ”: “God be thanked for the matchless gift of His divine Son.”⁴⁹ I say this in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

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