Learning How To Stop

Many years ago when I was much younger and much more agile, I took up snow skiing. I took a lesson after falling down and needing help to get up. The first part of the lesson was learning how to stop. How to stop without breaking a leg or getting the skis all tangled up was important. In the spiritual life, it is important to learn how to stop. Jesus stopped often. He would go off to pray or at least he disappeared from the crowd who came searching for him. In Trevor Hudson's excellent book, Signposts to Spirituality,/> he quotes Donald Nicholl, "Unless we can stop the rush and noise of daily traffic in our lives we do not have the slightest chance of hearing the call to holiness." (Kindle location 1369-76) What keeps me from stopping my hurried life? If it is greed, envy, competition, need to please others, etc., then I need to learn that these energies are not from God's Spirit. Stopping gives me an opportunity to face these energies with repentance and bring them to the Lord for conversion.